posted April 23, 2013 01:59 PM
This is a silly post, Randall.First, your title states: Obama's Pledge To America: How Can I Hurt Small Business? Let Me Count The Ways! ...which implies that Obama's against small business, and then you...
Turn around and say: Brick and morter stores are not undercut.
Brick and mortar stores ARE small business in this case, and it seems you're pitting yourself against them.
quote:
So, basically, if something is sold on-line, the merchant would be responsible for being an unpaid tax collector for all of the states that have a sales tax...not to mention the additional quarterly paperwork and record-keeping.
Which would make them equal with all the other businesses that currently do so. What do you have against small business and equality all of a sudden?
This is just another thing to pin on Obama for the sake of pinning something on Obama. It would be better just to understand the entire context.
Amazon fights eBay over online sales tax
By ANNA PALMER and LAUREN FRENCH | 4/23/13 12:02 PM EDT
Amazon and eBay used to be allies in Washington, protecting their best competitive advantage — the right not to charge sales tax — from the forces of big box stores like Best Buy and old-school department stores like Macy’s.
But those days are over.
Amazon flipped — and now it’s fighting eBay in an all-out civil war in the Senate, where a bill to set national sales tax standards is up for debate. Amazon now says it's OK to levy sales tax on Web companies. eBay still says, no way, and it's trying to drum up the kind of online support that squashed a major privacy bill called SOPA last year.
It’s the best — or worst — kind of fight in the world of Washington influence: It’s going to be big, expensive and bitter.
"Other than members tweeting photos of their members, there is no greater spectacle in the public affairs arena than two marquee brands duking it out over policy that impacts their businesses," said David DiMartino of Blue Engine Message & Media."These fights produce a uniquely Washington experience — the weekly consultants meeting — where each side has assembled their own Mt. Rushmore of big-name consultants and lobbyists strategizing and sharing information."
Recent past examples include the failed AT&T and T-Mobile merger, the Boeing and Airbus fight on Defense Department contracts and tech companies splintering over patent reform.
"Every industry has internal schisms from 30,000 feet you don't see," said Paul Equale, a veteran Democratic operative, noting the divide between and smaller banks in the too big to fail debate. "Because tech is relatively new, we have a tendency to always be amazed. The eBay-Amazon split, or difference in emphasis, on the sale tax goes back to the oldest axiom in politics — where you stand depends on where you sit."
The fight is so divisive that The Internet Association, a trade group built to fight major battles for the industry, isn’t even taking a stance.
Complicating matters: the battle lines don’t even split along party lines.
Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), who rarely agree on any issue, introduced the bill in February.
The two men have long made it an issue of fairness for small and local businesses.
Most industry watchers say it is only a matter of when, not if, the measure becomes law.
Democratic consultant Peter Mirijanian said that eBay's fourth quarter rally to thwart the legislation rarely works.
Mirijanian, who is not working for either company but has been involved in similar campaigns for the airline industry, credit card companies and travel websites, said it appears the "tipping point" on the Internet sales tax has been reached after an agreement was worked out that exempted certain merchants.
"There's always the temptation in a legislative battle to bite as much of the apple as you can. Others will say let's settle for half the apple," Mirijanian said.
But that doesn’t mean eBay is going down without a long, expensive fight.
Amazon “basically went from being the strongest opponent to being the biggest supporter,” Urban Institute senior fellow Kim Stacey Ruben said. “But eBay likes the advantage [of the current tax system] ... and as long as someone can have an advantage for not having it go through, they are going to lobby for that.”
Amazon and eBay used to share the same argument on a sales tax law: Unless a company had headquarters in a state, online sales were off-limits to taxes.
But then Amazon decided to open up distribution centers across the country to speed up delivery — giving states the chance to tap a new pool of tax revenue. Amazon was forced to make deals on a case-by-case basis with the states, a legal headache it hopes to replace with a national standard on how states can collect sales tax.
But eBay argues that an online sales tax is an unneeded burden on small businesses — like the millions of users on its site.
The tech companies are also both engaging in online campaign tactics and trying to harness local retailers to gain an edge with senators. eBay blasted millions of users over the weekend, and a retail trade group also used local merchants to help push their side of the issue.
Getting Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to take up the legislation is a major victory for Amazon. The prospects of the bill, which passed a procedural hurdle Monday night, moving on its own was unlikely just a month ago when Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said it should be part of a major overhaul of the tax code, and House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) opposed the legislation.
But, the Marketplace Fairness Act was picked by Reid to come straight after the failed guns legislation debate as the Nevada Democrat was looking to fill time on the Senate floor and was upset with Baucus over his decision to vote against an amendment to expand background checks. K Street sources say Reid and his staff are taking a leadership role in moving the legislation, following years of Durbin acting as the sherpa for the issue.
Senators voted 74-25 on the cloture motion yesterday. Further debate is expected on the legislation this week.
The legislation's future in the House this Congress is still unclear.
Still, fighting it is increasingly becoming a difficult task for eBay and anti-tax advocates like Americans for Tax Reform, especially since estimates show that cash-strapped states miss out on nearly $22 billion annually on untaxed online sales.
White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters Monday the administration supports an online sales tax enforcement fix because local brick-and-mortar retailers are “undercut every day” by untaxed internet retailers. And the National Governors Association also put out a statement Monday supporting the measure.
But eBay isn't backing down.
Like Amazon and the Retail Industry Leaders Association, eBay is focusing much of its lobbying effort on going local, Brian Bieron, eBay's senior director of global public policy, told POLITICO. He said the company has urged its members to share stories on how an online sales tax would stunt their business growth.
“If you get past the rhetoric of the other side claiming in some way there is competition between the Internet and stores … really the negative impact is on small businesses. At the end of the day, the voices back home are really important, but so are the facts,” Bieron said.
Bieron rejected the idea that eBay is the sole voice of opposition.
“The idea that this is eBay against the world is just not accurate,” Bieron said.
The company is sounding the alarm arguing that it will unfairly target small sellers. The company sent an email blast to millions of buyers and sellers asking them to tell Congress no to new sales taxes and burdens.
"Big national retailers are aggressively lobbying Congress to pass online sales tax legislation to 'level the playing field' with Amazon," eBay CEO John Donahoe wrote in an email. "This is a 'big retail battle' in which small businesses and consumers have a lot to lose. But eBay is fighting, as we have for more than 15 years, to protect small online businesses and sellers and ensure healthy competition, value, and selection that benefit consumers online."
eBay spent more than $480,000 on lobbying during the first quarter of 2013 with lobbying firms Eris Group, FTI Government Affairs, Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti, Mercury/Clark & Weinstock, ML Strategies, the Gibson Group and the JBH Group on retainer. The company spent $1.5 million on lobbying in 2012.
Other industries are also raising some concerns about how broadly the legislation is drafted.
The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association said today they fear it could open the door to a state-level financial transaction tax because states have the authority to select which goods to tax.
“We believe the impact of this legislation on trade in services has not been adequately explored by Congress,” said Ken Bentsen, acting president and chief executive officer of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, in a statement. “The bill could lead to unexpected costs being passed on to consumers of financial services, including sales taxes on services or state-level stock transaction tax.”
The Financial Services Roundtable said Monday it is also concerned about the bill creating a de facto financial transaction tax.
Amazon is also engaging in a full-court press. The company is blanketing Capitol Hill, trying to get intel on possible amendments and using its allies like the Retail Industry Leaders Association to push the issue.
Bill Hughes, the senior vice president of government affairs for RILA, said he is confident that the senators who cast a yes vote for the legislation during the budget vote last month are still supportive.
“We feel really good. Since that vote on the budget resolution occurred, we have gone back to those Republicans and they all feel good about their vote,” Hughes said. “We feel good about how they are going to vote this week.”
Hughes said the trade group went local to persuade on-the-fence senators to support the legislation by bringing district-based retailers to speak with their representatives.
“I would argue what really made the difference is that it’s not just the big guy coming in. We have a working coalition of thousands and thousands of small businesses who are mom-and-pop operations,” he said.
Amazon spent $2.5 million on lobbying in 2012.Sources familiar with the company say the issue is its top priority. Bockorny Group, Covington & Burling, Forbes-Tate, Patton Boggs and TwinLogic Strategies all lobbied for the company last year.
Versions of the Marketplace Fairness Act have been proposed for more than 10 years, but supporters have always fallen short of getting the required votes in the House and the Senate.
In Congress the split is hardly down party lines. Durbin and Enzi have worked for nearly a decade to pass an online sales tax bill, while Baucus, a Democrat, and Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch deeply oppose the measure they view as too complex for retailers.
Baucus has repeatedly opposed the bill for being too complex for retailers. During the budget debate last month, he criticized the thousands of independent tax jurisdictions that could be created. He also said it would unfairly impose a tax on retailers based in states without a sales tax, like Montana.
Durbin and Enzi contend that the bill would give brick-and-mortar retailers a chance to compete with online retailers that are not required to add a tax. They say consumers will go to stores to test products but then buy them online because of the price difference.
“A close friend of mine is the mayor of Normal, Ill. … He is a local businessman. … He told me in the last 10 or 20 years things have changed. It is not unusual for someone to come into [the] store to see a pair of running shoes and try them on and then leave without buying them,” Durbin said on Monday.
This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 11:29 a.m. on April 23, 2013
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/amazon-fights-ebay-over-online-sales-tax-90497_Page3.html#ixzz2RJIhuYO6
What's interesting is that the article doesn't address the entrepreneurs using Amazon's platform, which is probably as popular as eBay's.
Moreover Randall, conservatives are always trying to go back to some fantastical, idealized place in our history. If we view this issue on a historical level such a move would reverse our course back to a system where all businesses are equal in having to collect whatever sales tax is necessary in a particular state. We'd be going back to the Reagan era...except that our regular Federal taxes would still be MUCH lower, and less equitable.
Lindaland
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posted April 23, 2013 07:49 AM
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