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

Wed May 8 10:33:51 MST 2013

I almost fell out of my chair - "Not the end of the world man - sorry".  You do not care if business has to spend more and do more to comply.  I just do not get this mentality.  At some point one of these laws is going to bite you and then you will understand.

The difference between you and I is I actually work with these issues on a daily basis and you makeup some hypothetical example to support your point.

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Keith Smith

--- On Wed, 5/8/13, 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: Wednesday, May 8, 2013, 10:18 AM

Every city (and county for the unincorporated areas) had it's own corporation for the project that happened in the locality. Each one was treated separately and together as a consolidated entity with each one having it's own set of independent investors and several intermediate holding companies. Yes we had to deal with more then one. We only had two kinds of sales. 
With regards to Amazon, yes they need to do it. And so they are more then willing to do it for you as well, for a small fee of course. But talk to your accountant you may have better options depending on your type of business. Yes you may have to pay more then you collected  If you collected 8.4% but had to pay 9.2%, guess what you ate 0.8%. Now imaging you do $1.5M in sales and you only make an average of 10% per sale based on average rate and total costing methods. (this is actually a little low for most businesses of that size but hey - the bigger you get the smaller the margins become unless you invest in capital leverage, but then you could be sunk in the case of a rapid down turn. - it is all a bunch of risk sliders and each business is different) So of you 150K profit lets say you and your partner each take 25% and use the rest to reinvest. Either your annual salaries went 35.7K per year to 35.4K per year OR you invest $600 less in
 your business. I'm sorry - not the end of the world.

Not the end of the world man - sorry, it's not. Unless of course you insist on going alone and not discussing it with any experts who could help. Then your screwed.

On Wed, May 8, 2013 at 5:16 AM, JD Austin <jd at twingeckos.com> wrote:

I'm calling a little BS on your over simplification Bryan; you certainly DID NOT have to deal with more than one one state's sales tax rules unless you had a physical presence there.   There are even  different rates for different kind of sales; it is not a simple thing at all and is disingenuous to pretend it is.  Just having to deal with periodic tax updates alone on a national level is a burden unless you're a huge company like Amazon.   Imagine having to pay More than you collected because it wasn't up to date.   How would you send that money to each state?   Would a business need a bank account for each State like they do for just a single one?  It adds a lot business overhead that foreign competition selling online won't have and it's second and third order effects will drive down wages,  increase prices,  and frankly shut down a lot of business that has a low margin of profit.  It is totally an American dream killer.  Those same
 companies will be subject to other federal legislation that vastly increases business overhead too.   

Also 10M a month is a lot different than 1M a year.  Sales! = profit; this will finally be the big push that causes people with no real skills to lose their jobs to robots or to Foreign countries. 

JD  
On May 7, 2013 11:44 PM, "Bryan O'Neal" <Bryan.ONeal at theonealandassociates.com> wrote:

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
Voice: 480.269.4335 (480 2MY Geek)

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. 

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

Keith Smith
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