Congre$$ is working on it because this bankrupt government is grabbing for all the loot it can find.
"N.Y. ruling could change online sales tax laws" by Taryn Luna | Globe Correspondent, April 02, 2013
A recent New York court ruling that requires online retailers to collect state sales tax will not have an immediate impact in Massachusetts, but it could push Congress to change e-commerce laws so states can claim billions in tax revenues lost to online purchases.
Well, they never had them to begin with so they aren't lost. What a deceptive straw man they have set up there. Counting the taxes not paid as having been lost.
The question of whether states can require e-tailers to collect sales tax is a long-running issue that has mostly been decided in favor of the online companies. Federal courts have consistently ruled that retailers must have a physical presence in a state — such as employees, offices, and warehouses — to be required to collect sales taxes. That has allowed online retailers to offer many customers tax-free shopping.
But New York and a handful of other states are expanding the definition of physical presence to include so-called affiliates, independent contractors who maintain their own websites and are paid to promote the Internet retailers on their sites.
I'm just wondering how many small sellers and others they are going to run out of business and to more bu$ine$$ friendly states. The big guys will be fine, it's the small company that's going to get burned. Bu$ine$$ has really set up a Catch-22 here (by design, may I ad). They scream and receive lower taxes or hide them somewhere else, while collecting tons of taxpayer loot in bu$ine$$ subsidies in a legalized form of extortion and blackmail.
And who is paying the tax again?
In the New York case, two of the nation’s biggest online stores, Amazon.com Inc. of Seattle and Overstock.com Inc. of Salt Lake City, argued that these affiliates were not employees and did not constitute a physical presence in the state.
New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, on Thursday disagreed....
Overstock said it would consider appealing to the US Supreme Court....
Massachusetts has not adopted an affiliate law similar to New York’s, although a few lawmakers have proposed it. The Patrick administration has shied away from such legislation because online retailers have simply ended their contracts with the affiliates in response, hurting small businesses and individuals providing the service.
Isn't that what I said would happen above?
In addition, the administration last year negotiated an agreement with Amazon to collect the 6.25 percent sales tax from Massachusetts residents beginning in November, after the Seattle company established a presence here by acquiring a local technology firm and signing a lease in Cambridge.
It's just tax after tax here in Massachusetts.
Related: Massachusetts Sales Tax Swindle
Aren't they all?
Ultimately, administration officials said, the solution lies with Congress, which has the power to require online retailers to collect state sales taxes....
Bricks and mortar retailers have also pressed Congress to act, and momentum for action is growing....
A Senate vote was viewed as largely symbolic, since the House and Senate appear unlikely to agree on a budget. But it was also seen as an indication of changing sentiment in Washington.
Attitudes among online retailers are also shifting, said Navjeet Bal, who served as commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Revenue from 2008 to 2011....
Megan Knisely, director of affiliate marketing at Karmaloop.com , said the Boston online retailer specializing in clothing, would welcome congressional action if it made rates more uniform and sales taxes simpler to collect. That would lessen the administrative and financial burden....
“A federal law will have to provide a blanket tax for everyone,” she said.
Oh, that will make me feel all warm and cozy!
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UPDATES: Amazon will charge Conn. sales tax
You know, at least Amazon treats its employees good:
"Labor at odds with Amazon" by Jack Ewing | New York Times, March 04, 2013
BAD HERSFELD, Germany — Union activists stood in front of Amazon’s colossal gray distribution center last Thursday with a banner demanding that the US online retailing juggernaut negotiate a union wage contract with its currently nonunion workforce here.
The demonstration was the latest skirmish in an escalating battle between ver.di, one of the largest unions in Germany, and Amazon, which employs 8,000 permanent workers at eight distribution centers in the country, one of the online retailer’s largest markets outside of the United States.
Amazon’s labor relations have lately come under intense scrutiny by German media.
The triggering event was a Feb. 12 broadcast by one of Germany’s two main public television networks of a documentary about the treatment of some of the 10,000 temporary workers that Amazon hired last year to cope with the holiday rush.
The broadcast has since inspired countless headlines, preoccupied pundits on Germany’s ubiquitous television talk shows, and may even become an issue in the national elections this autumn.
And all we get here are Jerry Springer and Maury.
Heiner Reimann, a ver.di official, said that every year after Christmas he is flooded with complaints from temporary workers who say they were falsely led to believe they would get permanent jobs at Amazon if they met tough productivity requirements.
One of the union’s other criticisms is that a Big Brother atmosphere prevails in Amazon distribution centers.
Customer orders at Amazon are packed largely by hand, with productivity of individual employees closely monitored by software on the hand-held scanners workers use, and other means. ‘‘Feedback’’ sessions are held for those deemed insufficiently swift....
There is no sign yet that the controversy stirred by the documentary is cooling.
Peer Steinbruck, leader of the Social Democrats, has recorded a video message in support of the online petition drive, calling on Amazon to negotiate with the union.
“A strong company like Amazon doesn’t need to use poor working conditions to create a competitive advantage,’’ Steinbruck says in the video.
But Dave Clark, Amazon’s vice president of worldwide operations, said a union contract would not allow the company to pursue what it considers an innovative compensation system, which includes stock bonuses for all workers.
They want a job, not a bonus. Besides, it will be nothing like a banker's bonus.
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Related:
"Amazon.com Inc. said Tuesday that it earned $97 million in the October-December period."
That's not much at all, is it?
UPDATE:
"Amazon reviewing film’s claims of intimidation" by Melissa Eddy | New York Times, February 16, 2013
BERLIN — The workers came from across Europe to pack boxes for the online retailer Amazon at distribution centers in Germany during the Christmas rush. They did not expect to be watched over — some say intimidated — by thugs in neo-Nazi-style clothing and jackboots.
We call them security officers over here.
On Friday, Amazon said it was investigating claims made in a documentary that a subcontractor employed security guards with neo-Nazi ties to oversee the immigrant workers.
We call them security officers over here.
The documentary, broadcast Wednesday on the ARD public television network, showed guards in black uniforms with HESS, after Hensel European Security Services, but also the last name of Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess, emblazoned on their chests.
That could also be the oil company, no?
According to the film, security guards employed by the subcontractor scared and intimidated hundreds of temporary workers from Hungary, Poland, Spain, and other European countries.
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Also see: Amazon faces new claim in Germany
