Voters Split on Amazon Referndum

Go Figure (2.33 / 3)

Jesus !!
No wonder we elected Pete 'White Power' Wilson Governor, TWICE !!

Ask the voters how they feel about Energy De-Regulation !
It'll save Sonsumers MILLIONS !!!

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by: frisco @ Fri Jul 22, 2011 at 23:49:03 PM UTC

Move to Oregon (5.00 / 1)

Amazon if they lose could just up and move their CA plants to Oregon, No sales tax there, their servers and their Kindle manufacturing facilities, CA would lose income tax money and would not gain any sales tax money as the new CA law is illegal and unenforceable.

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by: SuperJoker @ Fri Jul 22, 2011 at 23:49:45 PM UTC

Let them move (0.00 / 0)

If they feel that way let them go. They will lose a chunk of their staff. They will lose access to Silicon Valley's talent pool. It will be their loss.

I disagree about the tax being illegal and unenforceable. If a transaction occurs in California that is covered by a tax, then the seller should collect the tax. Otherwise the company should be banned from doing business in the state as a criminal enterprise.

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by: surfk9 @ Sun Jul 24, 2011 at 03:41:15 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Problem is (4.00 / 1)

Out of State Resellers are not obligated by California Law just cause the CA Legislature says they are, when a business in CA(they do exit on Amazon's website, they're just rare) makes a sale Amazon does charge a sales tax as their obeying the 1992 US Supreme Court decision, to charge sales tax on purchases made by people in CA from Out of State retailers is illegal as CA has no Federal legal authority to do so with...

I buy whatever I want for the least total cost, If that happens to include tax cause something is for sale within CA, so be It, but more often than not I don't and no one can tell Me not to buy from an out of state reseller or even from a reseller that night be out of the country, which I've done from time to time and no one can make Me buy only in CA, I buy from whomever I please. Don't like that? I don't really care as their is nothing that can be done about It.

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by: SuperJoker @ Sun Jul 24, 2011 at 15:51:04 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

exit should be exist... n/t (0.00 / 0)

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by: SuperJoker @ Sun Jul 24, 2011 at 15:51:41 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

This a losing battle for the legislature on many fronts... (4.67 / 3)

Taxing out of state companies is and will remain unconstitutional.  Brick and mortar stores that sell multimedia and electronics are going the way of the dodo anyway...  Amazon can still under price even with a tax.

The tax revenues will never bee seen and the money wasted on litigation an media blitzes for the referendum could surely be spent more productively elsewhere.

Amazon/Overstock/etc are the new door to door salesman.  Salesmen were necessary before there were retailers within range of every person remotely close to a metro area.  Big box retail convenience shopping made Willy Loman obsolete.  Now the internet has made a huge energy wasting, real estate eating, retail location totally unnecessary.  It's a paradigm shift.

And if anything Amazon is HELPING small brick and mortar retailers by killing the big box model.  There will always be a need or a preference by certain people at certain times to go browse shopping.  A closing Best Buy could lead to the reopening of the small electronics store near you with knowledgeable ownership and professional install services.  He may even be supplied by big bad Amazon :-)

Let the free market work...

Hi. I'm Charles.  I worked my way from homelessness to a business owner.  Be what you have it in you to be!

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by: cjackson3 @ Fri Jul 22, 2011 at 23:56:11 PM UTC

This strikes me as extremely dubious. (0.00 / 0)

Amazon helping small brick and mortars? More like customers come in to the brick and mortar, get knowledgeable advice, browse... and then buy it from Amazon so they can avoid paying for the overhead, and avoid paying tax too!

Of course the free market works. If you tax one thing and don't tax another, people will buy the other.

Now why it's our policy to encourage people to shop from out of state, I'll never know.

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by: alai @ Sat Jul 23, 2011 at 20:38:21 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

There's a lot more (5.00 / 1)

Resellers on Amazon are more than just Amazon, So It's not impossible that Mom and Pop Brick and Mortars to be on Amazon's website.

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by: SuperJoker @ Sun Jul 24, 2011 at 01:42:04 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Maybe... (0.00 / 0)

Maybe because the tax rates are too high to begin with? Thats why some people buy cars in San Bernardino County or Riverside County compared to Los Angeles County? for example a car, would cost 140 bucks less in taxes (16,000.00 car).

People march with their feet.

I think for out of state small businesses under a certain amount of sales, they should just invoice the base sales tax amount (7.25), keeps it easy and they don't have to invest in database software.

And just like how BOE allows for 3% administration costs, maybe if a business has to buy database software to help determine what taxes need to be paid, maybe that software can be deducted so the mandate can be easy to be managed.

Also sites like mint.com should have a field where you can log your use tax so you can keep an accurate record for tax time.

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by: mmunson @ Sun Jul 24, 2011 at 18:30:58 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Where is it written that Democrats must support tax hikes? (4.00 / 1)

Why would anyone be shocked that most individuals oppose taxing Internet products and purchases?

Brick and mortar is already dead. Look at Borders Books. They didn't go out of business because of taxation, they went out of business because they lost all of their customers to a better mouse trap and the consumer trends in purchasing.

The government of California is too bloated, too fact, too ineffective and needs to be reduced.

That's not a political point-of-view.

That's a fact.

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by: Demsanddonts @ Sat Jul 23, 2011 at 01:45:41 AM UTC

That's some sharp critical thinking brother :-) (0.00 / 0)

Prepare for a salvo of Dogma in response LOL!

But seriously markets are going to function regardless.  Legislation slows them at best, backfires and accelerates them at worst.  We are headed for further deflation, and lower asset prices that will benefit the lower class.  Unemployment will stay high, perhaps leading to more single income families where a parent actually stays home with their kids!

What's so bad about letting the market function???

Hi. I'm Charles.  I worked my way from homelessness to a business owner.  Be what you have it in you to be!

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by: cjackson3 @ Sat Jul 23, 2011 at 03:46:58 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

So.. (0.00 / 0)

So Borders going out of business had NOTHING to do with the fact that if you bought a book at Borders, you paid tax, and at Amazon it was tax free?

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by: alai @ Sat Jul 23, 2011 at 20:33:34 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

The answer is no. (4.00 / 1)

Borders abdicated it's online data base to Amazon in the early 2000's.

They never developed and e reader and they were poorly managed.

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by: Demsanddonts @ Sun Jul 24, 2011 at 01:34:36 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

This (0.00 / 0)

dodges the question though.  To be sure Borders made a huge mistake by giving amazon control of their online business back in the early 2000s but the real question is whether or not amazon would necessarily win in a fight with them if they hadn't done that and didn't have the tax advantage.  Barnes and Noble is doing fine these days and adapting quite well to having both physical and virtual stores.  Amazon has now become something that survives by gobbling up other services as much as by its own offers.  The real question is what would happen to amazon if it didn't have the tax advantages but still had shipping costs etc.  

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by: call me ishmael @ Sun Jul 24, 2011 at 03:32:56 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Amazon isn't "surviving"... (0.00 / 0)

It's growing exponentially.  All this legislation did is screw over businesses in CA that are developing new and profitable models as affiliates.  These are the same "rich" you guys are so eager to tax!

This is the problem with the central planning ideology of "progressives" (though what progress it reaps I've yet to see)

No one knows the future.  No one saw Microsoft coming.  Microsoft didn't see Google coming.  Etc, etc...  These silly efforts to try and prop up specific assets, industries and demographics are doomed to fail.  Dynamic free market capitalism, taken in the long view, raises the living standards of all participants and has brought more people out of poverty than any social construct in human history.

Hi. I'm Charles.  I worked my way from homelessness to a business owner.  Be what you have it in you to be!

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by: cjackson3 @ Sun Jul 24, 2011 at 04:29:20 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I'm sorry (0.00 / 0)

but this is so oversimplified as to be beyond belief.  First of all there is no such thing as "free market capitalism."  All markets are regulated in some way or another whether legally through regulation or illegally through force.  "Free markets" were an 18c thought experiment (at least in the 18th people like Adam Smith knew they were thought experiments unlike their lesser successors among contemporary economists).  The question is always how to regulate the market, what rules to set up, and to what ends.  Secondly you keep trying to slip in a whole set of your assumptions and declare them facts.  You said in an earlier comment that "markets function."  Sure they do?  But to what end?  They historically function to increase inequality. They do not historically function to preserve the control of workers over their jobs.  They historically function to disrupt established communities.  They do not historically function to keep power dispersed in society.  Whether those are good things or bad things are open to debate but to simply assert that they are good things is far too simple.  Living standards include satisfaction--people used to get more satisfaction from work than they do now.  Crafts have been broken down, communities fractured etc.  
As for the lifting people out of poverty that is true in some places in some times.  There is a reason that the history of capitalism is a history of booms and busts.  It is because it ends up with declining economic power for many.  Again, the question is what rules should be placed for what ends.  These are not simply economic questions.  They are questions about lives lived in a shared world (you can pretend we are all atomized individuals but, to sound like you, that is a pretense).  One set of choices always involves tradeoffs.  The market is not a more rational mechanism for evaluating tradeoffs over non-economic questions (or even the ground of economic questions) than politics or any other form of debate.

Oh, and by the way, Google piggy-backed on the internet.  That was a government project.  Should I now start talking about the parasites of the market feeding off of the state?

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by: call me ishmael @ Sun Jul 24, 2011 at 17:49:48 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

A Key Component to a Free Market (0.00 / 0)

is information.  A California economics professor, George Akerlof, shared a Nobel Economics Prize for his research into markets with assymetric information.  They do not reach the ideal economic balance.

This is why the decision in Janus v First Derivative Traders may be the most anti-free market decision this court has made.

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by: CaliforniaCondor @ Sun Jul 24, 2011 at 22:28:55 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Amazon DOES have a "clear advantage" (0.00 / 0)

I am continually baffled by Dan Schnur's comments on the Amazon referendum. Initially he said Amazon faced an uphill battle, like he didn't understand that they will be the "no" side, which is always an advantage.

Now the referenced poll shows support/opposition for the concept of the Amazon tax at 45-51 to begin, then 46-49 with arguments. Let me make this easy to understand. THE INTERNET SALES TAX CANNOT PASS with 45/46% yes BEFORE a negative campaign has begun. Advantage is always to the "no" side and this is a great place for Amazon to start. It makes no sense to say "neither side starts with a clear advantage." Amazon is in a terrific position.

Don't get me wrong, I support the tax and am enjoying the way Amazon is tarnishing its brand and finally confessing that they have an unfair advantage by not collecting taxes. Unfortunately this is a big hill to climb to get the tax and related fairness...

Dave Fratello

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by: coaster @ Sat Jul 23, 2011 at 16:50:58 PM UTC

Tarnishing their brand??? (5.00 / 2)

Some of you guys appear to live in a very insular world...  No one but the most plugged in political geeks is really paying attention to this.  And when it comes time to vote on it the average squeezed Californian is not going to vote for higher taxes on anything.  It's going to be this way for the foreseeable future.

Amazon is a boon in low prices, business opportunities for affiliates and is leading to the destruction of the big box model for certain purchases (which as I stated earlier will open the market for new, agile small businesses).  Amazon's brand is sparkling.

I'm sure I'll get modded down for this quote but you lefties prove it true every time...

"If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it." ~Ronald Reagan

Hi. I'm Charles.  I worked my way from homelessness to a business owner.  Be what you have it in you to be!

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by: cjackson3 @ Sat Jul 23, 2011 at 18:41:27 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

If the Amazon referendum is defeated . . . (0.00 / 0)

California could find a way to enforce the Use Tax which is owed by consumers on out of State purchases.  But that's not the best choice, in my opinion.

California could abolish the State Sales Tax altogether and replace it with:

1. Higher personal income tax rates on upper income brackets.

2.  Elimination of the property tax advantage created by old Prop 13 for legacy business real estate.

3.  Institute an oil severance tax.

If these 3 suggestions in whole or part could be designed to be revenue neutral by matching them with the funds lost from the Sales Tax, it might pass.    

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by: evan @ Sat Jul 23, 2011 at 21:02:44 PM UTC

Use tax would cost more to enforce than you'd ever collect... (0.00 / 0)

Think the RIAA suing EVERYONE who downloaded music.  Can't be done and doing is selectively wouldn't have the desired effect.  Not to mention privacy issues...

ON your points...

1. Higher personal income tax rates on upper income brackets.
-  Doesn't work.  Spikes up and down with the economy.  removes more money from the real economy as upper icome earners compensate by spending less on goods and servcies.

2.  Elimination of the property tax advantage created by old Prop 13 for legacy business real estate.
-  I actually think this a fair proposal but your spineless Democrat legislators would never bring it up as it takes an intelligent argument explaining split roles and corporate owned RE transfers, etc.  Those idiots probably don't understand it themselves...

3.  Institute an oil severance tax.
- I wouldn't vote for it, but I'm sure many would.  

Hi. I'm Charles.  I worked my way from homelessness to a business owner.  Be what you have it in you to be!

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by: cjackson3 @ Sun Jul 24, 2011 at 04:23:49 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

make this clear- this is NOT a "new" tax on anyone! (2.00 / 1)

Most likely the voters who are against this new law are either ignorant of current law, or want to circumvent it.

CA sales taxes are payable by the purchaser on items brought into the state if they are not collected by the retailer.  Currently CA residents are on an honor system to self-report and self-pay (when filing their Form 540) any sales/use taxes on items purchased on-line which the retailer hasn't charged ("withheld", like an employer that withholds income tax then remits to govt.) sales tax.
 

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by: FFDAR @ Sat Jul 23, 2011 at 21:17:33 PM UTC

Its an honor system (0.00 / 0)

That not all can comply with, Not everyone can file a tax form like a 540, I can't.

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by: SuperJoker @ Sun Jul 24, 2011 at 01:45:45 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I did (0.00 / 0)

Paid the whole thing. I live in this state. I want to keep my local library open and would love to have the roads fixed. So the least I can do is to pay my taxes. So I did.

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by: cfinnie @ Sun Jul 24, 2011 at 17:22:32 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I've paid (0.00 / 0)

sales taxes when I have to buy locally, I've paid personal property taxes on a mobile home that I used to own, since My income is from the SSA(Social Security Administration), the SSA will not send Me paperwork to file for paying any owed sales tax(I asked once, heck they just had their office budget slashed, so they don't have a lot of time anymore), So it's out of My hands. Oh and My income can't be garnished as It's Federally protected, but then I collect SSI(Supplemental Security Income) as I'm physically disabled and I use a cane. Like I said I pay sales/use tax online if the seller is in CA, If the cheapest place is outside of CA then I buy from there and that's the cheapest total price after shipping and any sales/use tax is added in. Sure I could attempt to file, But I have no way to document My income, such as it is and I've tried, now I don't bother.

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by: SuperJoker @ Sun Jul 24, 2011 at 19:34:51 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

It's a tax that's due (1.00 / 1)

The State should collect it. If it is presented to the voters as unfair to local business and schools, it will fail. By the time next years election takes place, voters should be willing to put it to out of state blood-suckers who kill local business. Amazon should have never gone near this.

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by: surfk9 @ Sun Jul 24, 2011 at 03:32:36 AM UTC