OT: Internet Sales Tax Passes the U.S. Senate

Wed May 8 08:14:13 MST 2013

This is a scary response.  The government adds additional responsibility to online retailers and you say "so what" - spend more money and hire more people.  Yikes.  I hope everyone does not feel this way.

What about the next regulation that makes work harder and spend more, are you ok with that also?

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Keith Smith

--- On Tue, 5/7/13, Bryan O'Neal <Bryan.ONeal at TheONealAndAssociates.com> wrote:

From: Bryan O'Neal <Bryan.ONeal at TheONealAndAssociates.com>
Subject: Re: OT: Internet Sales Tax Passes the U.S. Senate
To: "Main PLUG discussion list" <plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org>
Date: Tuesday, May 7, 2013, 11:44 PM

Ken. If you are not recording your sales you are already screwed. If you are then your accountant will have the software required to do your sales tax. If you are doing over a million in internet sales but can not afford a few K for an accountant you are also screwed. If you whole business will collapse because of a new $1500 fee, you should not be in this business  I was an accountant for a company that did 10mill in sales every month and 3 of us took care of everything including the consolidated statements on several dozen subsidiaries and investor payouts not to mention the thousands of vendor invoices we processed every month. The only thing we farmed out was payroll and you know what - it is not that bad.It is not going to be hard once it becomes common. I

Regarding xen to quick books - again - weekend project for a friend who did far less then you apparently do. But I question what accounting software you do use if this is all way to much for you and you fear your current provider would not support you. Particularly when it is really not that big of a deal. Sure I would not write one from scratch for free - that is what peachtree, timberline, intuit, even freaking xTuple are for (the have a staff of professionals paid to make things easy for you). Don't freak out, don't fire people, don't close your doors, just be aware that you will need to talk to your accountant. And again, if you do over a mill in sales and you don't have one - god help you.

And no if your margins are low you may not make much at all off of a mill in sales. The value is reasonable to separate a hobby from a business  And if you are in business you should be capable of having a part time accountant process your orders through their software and spit you out a report once a week.  
But I will also say if you are just scraping by, and you are not able to grow your unit sales or decrease your costs significantly year after year, then you probably should be looking for another job anyway because stuff like this happens. You get a spike in bad customers, a rash of lost items in the mail, a new set of international tariffs or additional customs procedures, or - some one else who is doing it better then you. That is the nature of business.

On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 8:43 PM, keith smith <klsmith2020 at yahoo.com> wrote:

This is interesting.  Most think a mill a year in sales is a lot.  It really is not.  Not from my experience.  If you are doing a mill a year online you probably have a lot of overhead.  

You talk about doing the reporting on line.  Who is going to do it and how is going to ensure the right info is reported?  Someone will work more or an additional person will be required.

And I do not think we would " pipe xen cart on LAMP into quick books on windows real time"  The correct amount of sales tax must be figure during the sale based on local.

I work with these issues on a daily basis. it is going to be a nightmare.

------------------------

Keith Smith

--- On Tue, 5/7/13, Bryan O'Neal <Bryan.ONeal at TheONealAndAssociates.com> wrote:

From: Bryan O'Neal <Bryan.ONeal at TheONealAndAssociates.com>
Subject: Re: OT: Internet Sales Tax Passes the U.S. Senate
To: "Main PLUG discussion list" <plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org>

Date: Tuesday, May 7, 2013, 6:31 PM

Data exchange can be done - If I can pipe xen cart on LAMP into quick books on windows real time after a weekend of playing around I am sure some one like intuit will have way to cover you. That said - it will take a year or two for the dust to settle and it will cost people to comply. But if you sell $1M/year and you can not afford a $1500 bump in expenses I would say your margins are too thin to survive. As far as remittance most
 states allow you to do the monthly remittance online. I wrote a simple script for the sate of AZ so again, I think biger software companies can handle making it very simple for you. And again, if you are doing a mill in sales and you are not using some form of software that has active development you will have problems.

What I am trying to say is the concept is not as daunting as it may sound. The problem is not in the concept, however the execution will be very painful. And this will cause a lot of problems for a lot of people.

On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 6:19 PM, keith smith <klsmith2020 at yahoo.com> wrote:

It will not be as simple as tying one software package into another.  What if the provided software runs on Win8 and your cart is running on a LAMP server?

------------------------

Keith Smith

--- On Tue, 5/7/13, Bryan O'Neal <Bryan.ONeal at TheONealAndAssociates.com> wrote:

From: Bryan O'Neal <Bryan.ONeal at TheONealAndAssociates.com>
Subject: Re: OT: Internet Sales Tax Passes the U.S. Senate
To: "Main PLUG discussion list" <plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org>

Date: Tuesday, May 7, 2013, 6:11 PM

The real problem is internal US internet sales will be less competitive.  The regulations will be difficult at first but within a few years they will just tie the sales software into the tax software and it will be easy to calculate and deal with in real time with very little additional cost. The solution to competition is either use of an import tax or forcing compliance on any one who sells inside the us. And
 our sales to the outside will not be effected because other countries are not doing this... So purchasing from the US if you happen to be in some non US company looks just the same. In all truth... Sales tax is more progressive then income tax, so.... I am not sure I have an issue with it more then the predefined statement that TAXES ARE TOO DAM HIGH!

On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 5:41 PM, Jason Poulter <polt at snaptek.com> wrote:

It will just force people to buy things from sites and countries where they don't collect taxes , so really justs hurt the economy more losing out on sales that make economy better

Eric Cope <eric.cope at gmail.com> wrote:

http://blog2.easydns.org/2013/05/07/go-ahead-pass-the-internet-tax-your-foreign-competitors-thank-you-in-advance/

On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 1:55 PM, Stephen <cryptworks at gmail.com> wrote:

I also envision allot of quote building instead of online direct purchase. 

On May 7, 2013 1:43 PM, "keith smith" <klsmith2020 at yahoo.com> wrote:

Great idea.  Phone orders only, placed through a local terminal not the website.  Excellent!!

------------------------

Keith Smith

--- On Tue, 5/7/13, James Finstrom <jfinstrom at rhinoequipment.com> wrote:

From: James Finstrom <jfinstrom at rhinoequipment.com>
Subject: Re: OT: Internet Sales Tax Passes the U.S. Senate

To: "Main PLUG discussion list" <plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org>

Date: Tuesday, May 7, 2013, 10:11 AM

I predict "call to order" then the sale is not an "internet sale".
Much like companies are cutting employee hours to avoid obamacare people will find a way to avoid this. 

James Finstrom

ಠ_ಠ 

On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 9:19 AM, JD Austin <jd at twingeckos.com> wrote:

Great.. one more way to KILL small business by making them less competitive and increasing their overhead.  Companies will just adapt to this BS (and regular employees will pay for it).. getting close to 1M/year... time to SPLIT THE COMPANY.  

-- JD Austin
Twin Geckos Technology Services LLC
http://www.twingeckos.com
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jd at twingeckos.com
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On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 8:52 AM, Lisa Kachold <lisakachold at obnosis.com> wrote:

Keith:

On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 8:48 AM, keith smith <klsmith2020 at yahoo.com> wrote:

The U.S. Senate passed the Internet Sales Tax Bill.  Jeff Flake's office says he voted against it and John McCain's office said he voted FOR it.

It is being reported there in some 9,600 taxing authorities in the U.S.  Add to that 560 or so Indian tribe taxing authorities. That is over 10,000 taxing authorities.  Yikes!!  Any company with 1 million in sales will be required to comply.  I can tell you that a company that has 1 million in sales is not a big company.  That online retailer might consist of 2 or 3 employees with some additional help from a number of consultants and potentially a fulfillment center. 

>From first hand experience, I would say this law, if passed by the U.S. House, will cause a bunch of small online retailers to either go out of business or reduce sales through raising prices or some other
 method.  

This may very well play out like ObamaCare where companies are reducing the hours of their employees so they have less than 50 full-time employees.   In other words we will experience the unintended consequences of these laws.

These polices effect each of us.  

Yikes, yes!  And that will provide the revenue to expand Internet government regulation and compliance.  

Sadly, it had to happen. 

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Keith Smith
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