Gerry Harvey wants online shoppers to pay taxes.

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http://www.news.com.au/money/money-matt ... 5981373508

in yankeeland they already do, in many locales.

on stuff they buy online? Because there is Goods and Services Tax for stuff you buy in the stores here but if u buy stuff from a website eg Amazon.com that is overseas based, there is no GST on the purchase.

yes. amazon [and legions of other online vendors] charge local sales tax on things purchased through them, especially in washington state.

Absolutely.

The general principle of a value added tax is that it provides a basic level of taxation on all economic activity within the jurisdiction. We might exempt things like groceries, residential tenancies, medical and dental care and tuition for reasons of public policy, but generally speaking, if it's economic activity, government taxes it.

By exempting online sales and imports, we place a disproportionately higher tax burden on those sectors that are taxed. It stands to reason that the proliferation of online retailing and services should not be occur without attracting the same taxation that storefronts do.

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/societ ... 19irt.html

I know on eBay, if someone runs a business and sells something on eBay to another person in the state of said business, sales tax is required. But I couldn't tell you anything else. My view is that buying and selling on eBay should be no different than buying something from a human outside of a store, untaxed and unregulated.

That's because Amazon's HQ is in Washington State...

In most places businesses are not required to collect local sales tax unless they have a physical presence in that state. However, the buyer is supposed to pay excise tax, but in practice, that never happens.

My local sales tax is a ridiculous 9.9% (we also have a regressive income tax).

I buy everything from HDTVs to couscous from Amazon just to evade the local tax (and deprive Walmart of my money).

...and I'm not sorry either!! !

Edit:

Wow... apparently Washington state does coerce some out of state retailers to collect sales tax by threatening to sue them for back taxes...

What a bunch of greedy totalitarians.