May 14, 2003
Internet Tax Insanity!
From Secrets of Internet Sales Tax:
He described a scenario in which an Illinois resident, using a California credit card based out of a New Jersey bank, purchases a tangible piece of personal property from a Florida company as he crosses that state's border on his Wi-Fi phone and then specifies that the item be shipped to his aunt in Massachusetts. Who should collect sales tax revenue in this scenario? The answer is clear as mud.
Come ON! For Christ sake, lets make this reasonably simple. In the case of physical goods, tax it where its shipped to. In the case of electronically delivered goods tax it at the Credit Card billing address. For 99.9% of transactions this will end up billing the right tax and getting it to the right state. The other times it doesn't it'll just be wrong, and everyone is going to have to deal with it.
Don't get me wrong this is only part of the problem, (read the article for some more) but this is an absurd example, and while it might be interesting its never going to be perfect, but It'll be close enough.
Posted by nickb at 07:47 AM
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