On 23-Jan-12 10:49, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
Roland Perry wrote:
at 13:52:10 on Mon, 23 Jan 2012, Adam H. Kerman remarked:
wrote:
Here in many (if not all) parts of Europe, the price that you pay for
something already has relevant taxes figured in.

Yet here in the United States, when prices for airline travel and hotel
rooms are stated, they included taxes. In Europe, travel prices are
more often stated without all taxes included.
....
Many hotels in tourist spots have a "surprise" city tourist/hotel tax,
but not in the UK.

That would be unheard of in the United States. Various places have plenty
of taxes on hotel charges, but these would be quoted up front.

Not always. Most of the travel sites I use do _not_ quote the various
taxes and fees when comparing options; you may not see those until you
get to the payment stage.

This is understandable, since they want to present the lowest price
possible until you're mentally committed to purchasing it, in hopes that
the price going up by 25%+ at the last moment won't cause you to back
out at the last minute.

It is the same in many other industries, which tack on all sorts of
"fees" that, in any sane country, would be required to be included in
the price. The extreme example is offering a product for "free, just
pay $19.95 shipping and handling."

S

--
Stephen Sprunk "God does not play dice." --Albert Einstein
CCIE #3723 "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the
K5SSS dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking

Stephen Sprunk wrote:
On 23-Jan-12 08:06, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
Stephen Sprunk wrote:

And then there's Congress's Internet sales tax moratorium, so the same
product ordered by the same buyer from the same seller may by taxed if
the order was by phone or mail but not if online.

You misstated that. State sales taxes are collected on in-state sales;
there is no federal jurisdiction to impose a moratorium. Use taxes are
levied on interstate sales.

You well know that "sales tax" is almost always an abbreviation of
"sales and use tax", and the fact we have two different terms is a relic
of politicians playing games to get around the obvious
unconstitutionality of what they really wanted to do.

You still miss the point as to who the burden of paying and collecting
the tax falls on: The seller in case of in-state sales, and the buyer
in case of out-of-state sales. The state lacks jurisdiction on out of
state sellers due to the federal constitution.

Because you miss this point, you miss the obvious that there is no
federal moratorium in fact as collection of state use taxes is in
no way a federal issue.

Congress's a moratorium was on the collection of "use tax" on internet
purchases, which is also of questionable constitutionality, but since
the vast majority of customers never paid it anyway, nobody seems to care.

It's not of questionable constitutionality. There's no question about
the unconstitutional nature of the federal government imposing any
method of state tax collection.

Going from plain to Gold to Platinum rarely brings any extra benefits,
other than it being loosely linked to the credit limit, but even that's
not guaranteed.

Depends on the card. I have a green UK Amex card, and there are certainly
benefits I'd get if I paid for a fancier card, although I don't think any of
them are worth what they'd cost:

http://www.americanexpress.com/lacid...ss_cards.shtml

I have a mastercard from HSBC UK, which also provides travel cover. I agree that the
differences among their cards are much less interesting.

R's,
John

in case of out-of-state sales. The state lacks jurisdiction on out of
state sellers due to the federal constitution.

Hmmn. I gather you haven't read Quill v. North Dakota. Because that's
not what it says.

R's,
John

Stephen Sprunk wrote:
On 23-Jan-12 11:26, Neil Williams wrote:
On Jan 23, 6:00 pm, "Paul Rigg" wrote:

Different sales tax rates apply to different goods in my state.

Not a reason not to include them in the price. My point was that if
customer X enters the shop, then customer Y enters the shop, and both
buy the same thing, both would be charged the same for it?

Not in the US, unfortunately. There are various buyers that do not have
to pay sales taxes, either at all or for certain uses. So, even
customers who buy the same things in the same place may not pay the same
tax.

That really doesn't affect a lot of buyers:

In my state, units of government and schools (not non-school educational
organizations) and churches and charities are exempt from sales and
use taxes.

It's not an exemption as there's no VAT in the United States, but sometimes
goods for resale are purchased at retail stores and not from wholesalers
or distributors or from the manufacturer. The reseller does not pay sales
tax to the retail store as it's not a retail transaction.

The more logical solution would be for everyone to pay the tax and for
exempt buyers to get a credit/refund. That would also seem to be less
susceptible to fraud while greatly simplifying things for merchants.

That's a load of crap. You want the merchant to handle monies that have
to be refunded, eventually, claiming it's simpler.

I was a cashier as a kid. We had electronic cash registers many years
ago. With the push of a button, there was a way to ring up a non-tax sale.
The cash register would report aggragate non-tax sales, which would be
entered into the books. No, not collecting the un-owed tax didn't impose
an additional burden because there's already bookkeeping associated with
inventory and sales and tax collection.

The buyer or reseller would then have to save his receipts; that's a burden.
He'd have to file a form with the state for rebate; that's a burden. The
state would have to process forms from a great many non-taxpayers who
aren't currently filing forms. That's a burden. The state would have to
issue the rebates. That's a burden.

In the meantime, the non-taxpayer is without money he never owed to
the state in the first place. That's a huge burden, especially if you're
talking about a cash-poor charity.

You don't know what you're talking about.

Stephen Sprunk wrote:
On 23-Jan-12 10:49, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
Roland Perry wrote:
at 13:52:10 on Mon, 23 Jan 2012, Adam H. Kerman remarked:
wrote:

Here in many (if not all) parts of Europe, the price that you pay for
something already has relevant taxes figured in.

Yet here in the United States, when prices for airline travel and hotel
rooms are stated, they included taxes. In Europe, travel prices are
more often stated without all taxes included.

Many hotels in tourist spots have a "surprise" city tourist/hotel tax,
but not in the UK.

That would be unheard of in the United States. Various places have plenty
of taxes on hotel charges, but these would be quoted up front.

Not always. Most of the travel sites I use do _not_ quote the various
taxes and fees when comparing options; you may not see those until you
get to the payment stage. . . .

Then that stinks.

Roland Perry writes:

Travel itself doesn't have any "sales tax", although some airlines dress
up various items like airport and security fees as "tax and charges".
But so do USA airlines.


In some places it does. In Canada, for example, city transit doesn't have any
taxes, but long-distance stuff like Greyhound has Canada's VAT-equivalent. And
the price quoted (eg. Megabus's $1 from Toronto-Montreal) doesn't have the tax
included.

That's a load of crap. You want the merchant to handle monies that have
to be refunded, eventually, claiming it's simpler.

Yeah, it's simpler. I have both a NY sales tax merchant account and a
Canadian GST account. The GST is much easier to deal with.

What's your experience with VAT?

R's,
John

John Levine wrote:

in case of out-of-state sales. The state lacks jurisdiction on out of
state sellers due to the federal constitution.

Hmmn. I gather you haven't read Quill v. North Dakota. Because that's
not what it says.

Sigh. Quill gives me a headache.

Bellas Hess was the 1967 case that seemed to put make a bright line
distinction on whether the business had adequate nexus by physical presence
in the state for the state to impose its taxation regime upon it.

John Paul Stevens wrote the opinion for the Court. The North Dakota
Supreme Court observed a number of federal cases in which federal courts
veered away from Bellas Hess and thought that the state could assert
nexus via other factors than physical presence. In this case, state
law recognized three advertising campaigns by mail per year as minimum
to assert nexus.

Stevens wrote that the court generally agreed with the state supreme
court but reversed it regardless because it wanted to leave the Bellas
Hess opinion intact.

Also, the Due Process clause applies in a confusing way.

So not exactly, John.

North Dakota found a constitutional way to force the seller to collect
a state tax without infringing on interstate commerce.

John Levine wrote:

That's a load of crap. You want the merchant to handle monies that have
to be refunded, eventually, claiming it's simpler.

Yeah, it's simpler. I have both a NY sales tax merchant account and a
Canadian GST account. The GST is much easier to deal with.

What's your experience with VAT?

So, you're a reseller, and you would find it simpler to pay the tax you're not
subject to and then get it rebated?

You're not explaining your business situation as to why you have these
accounts.