Craig Chilton sighting - Oppose tax on Internet commerce, March 15, 2012 WCFCourier.

[Bill Taylor]

The butt pirates have apparently been dumped in favor of anti-
tax activism.

http://wcfcourier.com/news/opinion/guest_column/oppose-tax-on-
internet-commerce/article_f0c9697c-6deb-11e1-9731-
001871e3ce6c.html

A tax on consumer purchases made on the Internet from vendors
that don’t have a brick-and-mortar presence in Iowa is a
terrible idea, for many reasons:

Every new tax that has ever been created is one that people had
managed to do without beforehand. The only reason that folks who
live in Alaska, Oregon, Montana, Delaware and New Hampshire
still are fortunate enough to have no sales tax whatsoever, is
because they’ve never had one. No state that’s ever adopted one
has gotten rid of it. This bill seeks to substantially expand
ours by adding a whole new dimension to it.

The absence of a pervasive Internet tax is good for morale in a
recession-wracked country. And it’s an additional incentive to
buy — which is the engine that ends recessions.

For frequent online shoppers, the savings accumulate. Thus, they
currently can buy 7 percent more than they could if they were
taxed.

Significant and instant savings are derived from making big-
ticket purchases online from vendors having no physical presence
in Iowa.

For those of us who regard ourselves to be in an ongoing process
of being taxed to death by every level of government, the relief
from that which we have been enjoying for the last couple of
decades from the Internet has been a very bright ray of economic
sunshine. And as long as no one tampers with that — it is a
tangible way that continues to help make the United States of
America a great place to live and daily pursue many aspects of
the Great American Dream.

The vast majority of brick-and-mortar stores have continued to
click along just fine in the face of Internet competition. All
but the newest ones have had 20 years to evolve with it, and are
used to it.

Competition in our free-market economy has always provided
incentives for businesses to innovate. The current situation
helps to steadily drive that creative factor. Whereas imposing
the expanded taxation per SSB 3178 would simultaneously stultify
that progress, and discourage consumer spending.

In his March 4 column, Courier Business Editor Jim Offner said
that the taxation would benefit local businesses by providing
them with a leveling of the competitive playing field. However,
I submit that such a positive effect would be almost nonexistent
in light of the factors I’ve listed above. When consumers shop
online, they bargain-hunt on an exponentially-vaster scale. One
that minimizes to the vanishing point any rationale that
imposition of an Internet-wide sales tax could benefit local
businesses.

The kind of bargains that people can find on gigantic sites like
Amazon and eBay generally are beyond the scope of local
businesses to match in the first place, with or without the
sales tax factor. To cause those giants — and the literally
millions of smaller websites — to charge sales tax on all
purchases made from them would be detrimental to all online-
shopping lowans. As nicknames go, "E-Fairness" is a monumental
misnomer for this bill.

It is quite the opposite. It is a bad and pointless bill that
would benefit no consumers, few if any local businesses, and
simply would provide legislators with more latitude to throw
taxpayer dollars at their pet projects. So let’s just call this
bill by an honest name: "E-Unfairness."

Fellow lowans beware! This is not about helping local
businesses. If this harmful bill is passed, everything that you
buy on the Internet from then on will be taxed! Every thing!
From everywhere! Irrevocably! The Internet that you have known
and loved over the years will never again be the same, nor as
inexpensive. Not ever! Your way of life will be changed. By a 7
percent margin across-the-board, that will be gone.

Consumers need to vigorously and vociferously oppose any and all
efforts to add this new tax burden to their repertoire, and
thoughtful businesses of all sizes and locales should side with
them in that effort. Contact your representatives at the
Statehouse and tell them to kill SSB 3178. Make this a high-
priority grassroots effort.

If such a tax ever should be imposed in the future, then let it
only be done to the people by the people. Via a statewide ballot
referendum; not by legislative means, which all too often is
driven by special interests.

Then if it ever does come about, the people will have no one to
blame but themselves.