Internet sales tax, yea or nay?

brianlux said:

Meltdown99 said:

brianlux said:

LongestRoad said:

You should pay tax on new items or services. 

Yeah, really if you look at it, paying tax on used items is double taxation.  Which means my wife has been required to collect that double tax from her customers for 35 years and me for about 15 years (although my business in tiny in comparison to hers).   Places like Goodwill and Snowline Hospice Thrift stores (I think rightfully so) collect no tax.

Used items should not be taxed ... tax should only need to be paid once.  There should only be either income tax or a sales tax not both.  

Interesting thought.  Gov probably won't go for it though!

One interesting idea I've heard (regarding sales tax) would be to tax only non-essential items.  That is, no tax on food, shelter, clothing, medical needs but sales tax on everything else.  That way, the person making a low income isn't hit as hard, people buying common entertainment and accessory items paying a moderate amount of tax and people who want yachts, precious stones, swimming pools and other luxury items would pay higher tax.  The higher the cost of a non-essential item, the greater the tax.  I thought that made sense.  Gov probably won't go for it though!

mace1229 said:

Reminds me of tipping.
i remember 30 years ago the standard tip was 10%, now its at least 20% due to “cost of living.” But why?
30 years ago a meal was $5 and you tipped 10% (or 50 cents). Now that meal is going to cost close to $20 and you tip 20% (or $4). The tip has increased much faster than the cost of living has. Taxes have done the same thing.

Meltdown99 said:

brianlux said:

Meltdown99 said:

brianlux said:

LongestRoad said:

You should pay tax on new items or services. 

Yeah, really if you look at it, paying tax on used items is double taxation.  Which means my wife has been required to collect that double tax from her customers for 35 years and me for about 15 years (although my business in tiny in comparison to hers).   Places like Goodwill and Snowline Hospice Thrift stores (I think rightfully so) collect no tax.

Used items should not be taxed ... tax should only need to be paid once.  There should only be either income tax or a sales tax not both.  

Interesting thought.  Gov probably won't go for it though!

One interesting idea I've heard (regarding sales tax) would be to tax only non-essential items.  That is, no tax on food, shelter, clothing, medical needs but sales tax on everything else.  That way, the person making a low income isn't hit as hard, people buying common entertainment and accessory items paying a moderate amount of tax and people who want yachts, precious stones, swimming pools and other luxury items would pay higher tax.  The higher the cost of a non-essential item, the greater the tax.  I thought that made sense.  Gov probably won't go for it though!

There so be no tax on essential items.  Here in Ontario we tax on our natural gas for heating...it's stupid...

mace1229 said:

Reminds me of tipping.
i remember 30 years ago the standard tip was 10%, now its at least 20% due to “cost of living.” But why?
30 years ago a meal was $5 and you tipped 10% (or 50 cents). Now that meal is going to cost close to $20 and you tip 20% (or $4). The tip has increased much faster than the cost of living has. Taxes have done the same thing.

PJ_Soul said:

Meltdown99 said:

PJ_Soul said:

Meltdown99 said:

brianlux said:

Meltdown99 said:

brianlux said:

LongestRoad said:

You should pay tax on new items or services. 

Yeah, really if you look at it, paying tax on used items is double taxation.  Which means my wife has been required to collect that double tax from her customers for 35 years and me for about 15 years (although my business in tiny in comparison to hers).   Places like Goodwill and Snowline Hospice Thrift stores (I think rightfully so) collect no tax.

Used items should not be taxed ... tax should only need to be paid once.  There should only be either income tax or a sales tax not both.  

Interesting thought.  Gov probably won't go for it though!

One interesting idea I've heard (regarding sales tax) would be to tax only non-essential items.  That is, no tax on food, shelter, clothing, medical needs but sales tax on everything else.  That way, the person making a low income isn't hit as hard, people buying common entertainment and accessory items paying a moderate amount of tax and people who want yachts, precious stones, swimming pools and other luxury items would pay higher tax.  The higher the cost of a non-essential item, the greater the tax.  I thought that made sense.  Gov probably won't go for it though!

There so be no tax on essential items.  Here in Ontario we tax on our natural gas for heating...it's stupid...

I agree there should be no tax on essential items (as there already isn't on groceries), and also agree that used items should not be taxed - I'm not up with double-dipping by the government.

The question is?  What's essential?  What's not?  I'm not sure sales tax would ever removed from clothes ... but to a certain degree clothes are essential as well.  But I think some hygiene products should be tax free, some clothes as well...it might require another committee to figure out what items should exempt...

I consider essentials those things that fall under the basic necessities list, which is shelter, food, heat, water, clothing (and yes, feminine hygiene products, even though that's not a traditional basic necessity because people never wanted to think about it... Diapers should also be on the list). But shelter is complicated because of the necessity of property taxes, which are needed to maintain a home, but there is no tax on rent, at least not technically (the owners just work them into the rent though), and I think that's generally fine given the fact that property taxes are an absolute necessity to keep up the infrastructure that those properties rely on. However, I believe in rent control to make up for that. For clothes, well, I agree removing taxes from all clothing would be too much, but there are already exemptions for children, and I think a good idea would be to maybe provide tax refunds for clothing to those who earn less than, say, $30K/year or something. Or to provide refunds for maybe the first $300 worth of clothing bought in a year or something like that. Just some random ideas for how to help people who are struggling while still making sure there is enough tax revenue coming from those who can afford it.

mace1229 said:

PJ_Soul said:

mace1229 said:

Reminds me of tipping.
i remember 30 years ago the standard tip was 10%, now its at least 20% due to “cost of living.” But why?
30 years ago a meal was $5 and you tipped 10% (or 50 cents). Now that meal is going to cost close to $20 and you tip 20% (or $4). The tip has increased much faster than the cost of living has. Taxes have done the same thing.

I have to disagree with you there, just because the gap between the cost of living vs salary increases has grown ENORMOUSLY over 30 years. People are able to afford much less on their current salaries than they were able to back then. So the tips are actually about the only fair increase going, since people's regular salaries compared to the increases in cost of living have not experienced the same benefit.... and that is solely because regular people are much more generous and caring towards servers than business and corporations are towards their workers. If greedy corporations were even half as decent as those tipping their servers, people wouldn't be struggling so much.

That sounds like even more reason to have kept tipping at 10%. If cost of living, which would include eating out I assume, has increased at a higher rate than salaries then a 10% tip would still equate to a bigger “raise” than the general public, right?