Costello: Internet Sales Tax? In Idaho?

23 comments on this post so far. Add yours!

• 

  TWolf22 on February 04 at 9:49 a.m.

  Ok, all of you out there who don’t want sales tax on internet sales. Internet sales are taking from brick and morter sales that have to collect sales tax; on the same items. The only difference is that the item was bought on line instead of over the counter.
  Sales Tax has historically been a source of funding for a variety of things, which were around long before the internet and it was not conceived that there would be a way to avoid paying sales tax. Now, people are avoiding the sales tax and the funding is drying up for those things that were structured to depend on sales tax.
  What is your suggestion to replace the funding lost to the internet?

• 

  Arch_Druid on February 04 at 10:42 a.m.

  While I would be inclined to agree with you, TWolf, there is a degree of hypocrisy behind anything that Otter does. An activist gvt goes against free market foundations. Yet, Otter does indeed push such an activist gvt. Or that taxes are a threat to job creation, yet Otter pushes taxes into new venues.

  Then too, as you say, sales taxes fund a variety of things. Yet didn’t we have an issue over public schools here in Idaho where Otter, Luna, and etc. were too willing to replace text books with on-line courses and teachers with computers? This way, he could proclaim a budget surplus…

  You have to wonder about the guy who’s public policies zig zag all over the map.

• 

  Don_Sausser on February 04 at 11:09 a.m.

  Arch, online classes have been available at CDA High School for some time. NIC has over 270 online classes active.

• 

  Arch_Druid on February 04 at 11:24 a.m.

  Is that the only argument you have Sausser? Dude, Luna’s “reforms” would have made what were before voluntary classes mandatory. That is exactly what got people so upset. Esp. teachers who would lose their jobs because of it.

• 

  greenlibertarian on February 04 at 11:37 a.m.

  Of course, there’s another alternative that is both fair and more in line with Idaho’s conservative culture. Don’t try to create fairness by imposing taxes on embryonic businesses. Make the tax code fair with a complete overhaul of Idaho tax laws that includes the abolition of sales taxes altogether.

  That way, when all those other states conspire to impose sales taxes, Idaho will be a sanctuary state that the new businesses can flee to.

  Right, like that’s EVER going to happen. What a tool.

  Why they keep giving this guy a column is beyond me. Most of the time, all he does is rail against the government, meanwhile he suckles at the government teat for his very livelihood.

  Hey Trib editors, one of the definitions of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Wake up, Costello is never going to write a decent column. He’s a hack. You mock conservatives by giving this dullard a column, is that your objective?

• 

  Don_Sausser on February 04 at 11:40 a.m.

  Arch, DUDE, I was not making any argument, just a point of information.

• 

  Arch_Druid on February 04 at 12:13 p.m.

  Yeah Sausser, and the point was taken. But, there is still a difference between what students voluntarily take in the form of classes and what gvt mandates. If you don’t like it if a Democrat does it, then you shouldn’t like it when a Republican does it.

• 

  hhuseland on February 04 at 12:13 p.m.

  I suspect that if he doesn’t, someone will tell him.

• 

  Don_Sausser on February 04 at 12:31 p.m.

  Demo & repubs???? Off the subject Arch.

• 

  fortboise on February 04 at 1:14 p.m.

  “To expect such tiny enterprises to comply with the typical record keeping and bureaucratic burdens that governments typically afflict businesses with would certainly crush many out of existence.”

  Oh please. I ran a small business and complied with the supposedly crushing regulatory burden imposed by government, and still had time to go out for a drink after work.

  Net taxable sales to Idaho customers, times 6%. If you need help finding the [%] key on your calculator let me know.

  I hope Costello shows more competence in his job as a research technician at WSU than he does at opining on the tax system.

• 

  MatthewRoot on February 04 at 1:44 p.m.

  agreed fortboise. My wife owns a small business subject to sales tax (state and city). She does her own bookkeeping, and I file her state business taxes. The arithmetic and filing pretty easy.

• 

  hmoffsuite on February 04 at 2:36 p.m.

  fortboise >>> “Oh please. I ran a small business and complied with the supposedly crushing regulatory burden imposed by government, and still had time to go out for a drink after work.”

  For a mom and pop operation, it normally isn’t an undue burden. But, what if you are a small business, say 500 employees and operate stores in maybe a dozen Cities and Counties within the State? It could easily become a burden with considerable expense. Expense they don’t currently have, btw.

• 

  Dennis on February 04 at 2:50 p.m.

  Then maybe they shouldn’t be in business. It’s not hard folks, an if it’s that much of a burden then they probably need to be hit in the forehead with a tack hammer and advised to consider another career.

• 

  hmoffsuite on February 04 at 3:23 p.m.

  Dennis >>> “It’s not hard folks, an if it’s that much of a burden”

  In and of itself, this probably isn’t a big deal, I agree. But, there are other requirements made of businesses now that have a accumulative effect. Sure enough, the business will get audited by the State and that is a pain in the …..Costly in man hours. In my business the amount of burden being placed on us is unbelievable. A lot of it is Homeland Security stuff and many other compliance issues. Identity theft precautions are another layer of paperwork. Nothing ever gets easier and it just keeps coming, to a point where it is a real expense item.

• 

  jmrusche on February 04 at 3:27 p.m.

  What might be forgotten in all this is that purchasers in Idaho are legally required to pay a sales tax at the time of purchase through the retailer OR submit a use tax (6% of purchase price) to the tax commission with their annual return. This “sales and use tax” is most easily collected at time of sale.

  Since most online transactions are by credit or debit card, it is no great feat to add in the sales tax of the zip code of the purchaser. There is a project to streamline the process even more, the Streamlined Sales Tax Project. And there is a bill in Congress, the Main Street Fairness Act, that would authorize states to reach agreements to support each other through this compact.

• 

  lovetohateme on February 04 at 4:04 p.m.

  Amongst my other work, I help operate webstores for a couple of small businesses and for a non-profit. It took a week of work to get the first one configured to charge the extra percentage solely for customers in Idaho. One of them needed it for Idaho and Washington, and even though I was familiar with the setup process by then, it took me a full day of configuring and testing to make sure it was working right. It is not just as simple as flipping a switch to get every small business’s website up and running sales tax for every state that demands it.

  I can’t imagine the nightmare that would ensue if it became necessary to configure every small business’s webstore to start charging every state’s sales tax, not to mention county sales taxes and other local sales taxes when they start clamoring for “their share.” And after all that there is the work involved in ensuring each of those states receives the money when they want and how they want it. These kinds of laws will make it extraordinarily difficult for small businesses to compete with the corporate giants who have the full-time web staff needed for making these changes and accountants and lawyers to get the proper forms and payments filed with each state. And of course, the corporations have these teams available for audits and other hassles. There are some (many?) small businesses that just won’t be able to stay above water with these additional burdens.

• 

  hmoffsuite on February 04 at 4:17 p.m.

  Thanks. That is just about what I was trying to communicate. You are absolutely correct.

• 

  fortboise on February 04 at 5:36 p.m.

  Actually no, hmoffsuite, lovetohateme’s lament about the programming time is not “absolutely correct” any more than your modification of Costello’s argument from “microbusiness will be overburdened by this task” to say that OK, maybe they aren’t but “small” businesses with 500 employees would be burdened makes any sense.

  Writing custom software takes time, for dealing with payment systems, inventory, customer accounts, whatever. If you built all that and didn’t provide for sales tax, yes, there’s more work to do. Once you’ve done TWO states, you should be all set for a HUNDRED, unless you designed it one-off for just two states.

  A database table with fifty rows and two or three columns is not exactly heavy lifting. If that sounds like a “nightmare” to you, you’re in the wrong business.

• 

  greenlibertarian on February 04 at 6:16 p.m.

  EXACTLY Fort Boise.

  I used to work for a credit card processor, merchant services. The POS software THAT WE GAVE AWAY FOR FREE had the capability to handle several THOUSAND different sales tax schemes to accommodate just about any local (and combined) sales tax scenario.

  We had next to no problems with these features, our customers could readily figure them out and assign accordingly, or custom build new ones, filling in the blanks, basically.

  And that was YEARS ago, surely the stuff they how is even better.

  Caveat Emptor is certainly relevant in acquiring IT services, many choices are available.

• 

  lovetohateme on February 04 at 6:29 p.m.

  fortboise, you have obviously not spent any amount of time working on a website as complex as those I help out with. Yes, the system is the same for each state, but it isn’t just a matter of filling out a database table which can take a few hours at most. There are multiple settings that must be configured and then checked to ensure the system works. Not to mention keeping track of changing local laws and then updating to accommodate each one. And gl, we are not discussing a “POS program,” but a live production website with dynamic content (unlike a program) and work perfectly for every customer every time. If it doesn’t, they at minimum lose customers’ business and at most get audited and/or shut down for not complying with the law. If we could trust customers to enter their local taxes, as you suggested your “POS software” allowed, that might be fine and dandy. Except that is subject to all sorts of human error and deceit. No, that is not an acceptable solution.

• 

  TWolf22 on February 05 at 11:42 a.m.

  Will someone answer how to replace the funding lost to online sales????

• 

  fortboise on February 05 at 1:37 p.m.

  Sorry, @lovetohateme, you have no idea of my command of complexity, and your inference about what is “obvious” is both intemperate, and wrong.

  What should be obvious to you, if you have the relevant experience you claim, is that if you have provided for collecting sales tax on purchases in two different states, either you have a system that should be easy to generalize, or you went about the task in the wrong way.

• 

  lovetohateme on February 06 at 4:50 p.m.

  I assure you, I go about everything in the most efficient way I know how, and I am constantly looking for better ways to do things. The way these webstores are configured is the same way every other webstore using this CMS is configured. And no, it isn’t a matter of just feeding it a two column database with tax rates and states. There are actions to be configured for to ensure taxes are only applied to purchases from the appropriate state, when taxes are applied during the checkout process, special considerations for non-taxable purchases, and many other aspects that are necessary for a smooth checkout process. I would be happy to learn if you know of a better payment system for fully-customized websites that could easily accommodate multiple states’ & localities’ sales tax systems by just entering a simple database of the locations and their tax rates. That would be fantastic.

« Back to Huckleberries Online

• ›Scanner traffic