Online sales tax: Bad choice for states' fiscal recovery
Saying that they "can no longer ignore an entire segment of the retail marketplace," states are lining up to try to tax online sales. I wrote this years ago on ZD Net and I'll say it again: The states are not missing anything. If they have any type of tax on company revenues, they are capturing sales made online within their region. If they hope to capture sales taxes on purchases made over the Internet by citizens of their locality, the cost and complexity of doing so makes the idea a money-loser with a huge upfront investment.
The states are in a pickle due to larger economic problems than the failure to capture local sales taxes on the Net; by the time any solution to this minor failure to tax is in place, the economy will have probably entered a new up cycle.
Posted by Mitch Ratcliffe at December 30, 2002 12:00 PM | TrackBack