Dear Government: I will not Comply w Internet Tax Bill; Go Fish!

Sometimes a citizen has to think Boston Tea Party. My time has come. Neither will I be forced into indentured servitude as involuntary tax collector, nor will I allow government to tax the sweat of my brow creating the goods I sell. There is more I will not, as well.

by H. Michael Sweeney

copyright © 2013, all rights reserved. Permission to repost hereby granted provided entire post with all links in tact, including this paragraph, are included.

The Senate passed the Marketplace Fairness Bill (Internet Tax)

from Facebook post by The Anti-Media

Just say no!

This is in point of fact sweetheart legislation to benefit Amazon.com and select other firms, though they claim instead that it will benefit local retailers who ‘suffer’ because people can buy goods for less at times on the Web. So what is this, really, a tax on savings? Where do they get the nerve to steal from us yet one more time? And how do they get the nerve to call Federal Price fixing against select businesses the ‘Marketplace Fairness Act.’

If you really want to level the playing field among sellers, pass a law eliminating sales tax that States might join with Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, and Oregon, who have no sales tax. Take Oregon, for instance, where voters must approve any tax, and pay only income tax; NO SALES TAX. Sales tax, especially when citizens have no say over it’s levy, or no, is legalized highway robbery by the taxing authority.

If the Bill passes the House the way the it is currently written, a Web marketer would henceforth be required to collect sales tax for all federal, regional, and local taxing authorities where the purchaser resides. This creates a nightmare of calculations which can only be met by using complex point-of-sale software, software which Amazon.com has already written according to radio commentator and former newsman, Lars Larson. Amazon is the only Web firm pushing for this law, the only Web company with the nerve to charge a 2.9% service fee on tax collection, payable by the third party seller who sells through Amazon.

That’s just one reason I don’t sell anything through Amazon, who has a bad habit of running rough shod over smaller businesses. That is exactly what the tax being forced upon its lesser Web competitors will be doing.

My findings are somewhat different than Larson’s, however. The service fee is correct, but Amazon uses third-party software solutions from a company called Vertex, which is currently the new name for (by acquisition) the old Arthur Anderson Accounting firm… you know… the CIA’s preferred accounting hijinks firm to conceal money laundering from illegal arms sales, drug sales, and terrorist payoffs. See 2002 on the firm’s timeline.

The government says they will give the software away, but do you suppose Amazon (or Vertex) will give it to them, for free? And what about firms like PayPal, where Web transactions are already complicated, and where Amazon/Vertex software will not likely fit nor be well adapted? Important, because a lot of Web marketers work out of simple Web sites which rely exclusively on PayPal for payment transactions, and have no site processing capabilities, even if handed the software, having no means of implementation short of paying someone to re-engineer their Web site.

The Supreme Court has already ruled that you cannot force a business without a physical presence in a State to collect tax for products or services paid for from persons within that State. But Congress is being asked (by Governors of Sales Tax States, naturally) to write such a law, anyway. That’s highwaymen writing laws to make highway robbery legal without even having to visit themselves upon highway travelers. Automatic holdups.

I refuse, thank you

And that notion brings us to the bottom line. Take me. I sell books. Books I wrote and self publish. This is the sweat of my brow and I will not have anyone charge a tax on one when I sell it. Nor will I do the job of tax collectors without being paid for the trouble, and certainly will not pay someone else for the trouble ‘on my behalf.’

You cannot force someone to do a job for free, that is called slavery.  So instead of the highwaymen at least confronting the travelers and demanding taxes under threat of punishment, themselves, they instead intend to force others to do so on their behalf, and or to pay a third party (i.e., Amazon/Vertex) for the privelege; this is clearly indentured servitude, and forced contractual agreements with no say so in the terms, thereof.

Hmm… sounds a lot like Obamacare, doesn’t it. Funny, that was called a tax bill, too, once the Supreme Court told them forced contractual obligations were unconstitutional. Making it a tax made it legal, somehow.

Bottom line: If you want me to collect and pay such taxes, use someone’s software or services, or see me pay a sales tax on anything I purchase from another State via the Internet, then bring your guns that you can stand over me at every transaction. Bring lots of bullets, too; say all 1.4 billion of them, because I, and perhaps many others, will probably be forcing you to duck for cover in the effort.

Else go to Hell.

O.K.  I’m calmer, now, having got that out of my system. And sure, the law only applies to businesses doing over $1M annually, and that is not (yet), me. But if anyone wishes to place an order for $1M or more in books, I WILL NOT TAX the sale, nor pay such a tax upon demand. That’s my promise… and THERE IS a harbor close enough for me to dump… well… in the absence of any bales of tea… the taxman who cometh. I’d even throw in a Congressman or two for good measure, except I can’t throw them any farther than I trust them.

 

 

 

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