The Assembly of California passed a bill that would allow the state to collect taxes from online retailers like Amazon.
Americans are all guilty of buying stuff online without paying the sales tax on it. Technically, if we live in a state with a sales tax, we are supposed to declare the purchase on our tax return and pay the piper, but who has the time (or conscience big enough) to go through all that trouble?
Internet retailers have so far lobbied to keep such transactions tax free, keeping the onus of payment on the customer, but a bill passed today in California would allow the state to tax retailers to the tune of $1 billion. The bill now must make it past the State Senate before becoming law.
Charles Calderon, the Democrat who proposed the law, says that he’s not in favor of creating a new tax, just making it legal for California to collect taxes he feels the state is owed. Republicans rejected the bill because they believed attempting to regulate the internet is a losing proposition.
I’m of two minds on this law. One, the government doesn’t have the money to pay for basic human services so the fact that online retailers might be circumventing their god-given duty to pay taxes really grates my cheese.
On the other hand, I don’t want to pay any more taxes when I buy the new George R. R. Martin book in July.
So yeah, I guess I’m just a bad citizen.
Source: NBC
