Supreme Court Goes After Internet Cheats

What a relief. The Supreme Court has cleared the way for forced taxation of Internet sales.

I must be the only person who is relieved. I can explain.

I live in a state where we are legally required to pay tax on all purchases. If I buy something on Ebay, and the seller doesn’t collect tax, I have to report it and pay it myself.

I’m not going to say I always did this in the past. I do it now. I feel that curses fall on thieves and liars.

The Internet has a way of bringing new curses into people’s lives. It brought us pornography and Internet rage, for two examples. The sales tax thing is another example. The Internet made tax evaders out of most of us. I decided to start tallying up my purchases and sending money to Tallahassee.

I hate dealing with sales tax. I hate making lists of purchases and dealing with the Department of Revenue. Their website is an abomination. You have to enter every purchase on its own line, and if you click the wrong thing, everything disappears. They only let you pay quarterly, so you have three months’ worth of items every time you log in. It’s awful.

Florida doesn’t deserve the taxes. It makes paying them a miserable experience.

Now that Florida has been cleared to force sellers to collect taxes, I may be spared all that work. I sure hope so.

I actually look for items that come with a sales tax charge. I will pay ten dollars plus tax instead of $9.50 for something, simply to avoid the bookkeeping.

The new tax system should be good for America. It will help states collect lost revenue, making them (I naively state) less likely to raise taxes. Florida has no income tax. I don’t want to see Amazon force an income tax on us.

Will the taxes help bricks-and-mortar retailers? No. It’s stupid to suggest they will. Online vendors have lower overhead. Even if they charge for shipping (many don’t), they will still have competitive prices, and on top of that, they have better selection. And customers don’t have to drive. That’s a huge advantage.

Am I going to drive all over town just to get a box of .22 shells, when the Internet cost is $7.00 and the local price is $6.50? Are you nuts?

People keep telling us to support local retailers. I would love to, if I thought it would work. It won’t, so I don’t. In fact, they punish me when I try. They fail to maintain inventory. Their employees disappear when I need help. They don’t put enough cashiers at the registers, so I have to wait. They put me on hold when I call to see if they have what I want.

Real stores will continue to disappear. That’s just how it is. Horses disappeared. Newspapers are disappearing. Deal with it. It’s a bad thing, because it centralizes control of the distribution of goods, but there is nothing we can do.

If you’re a Christian, my advice is to pay your taxes even if you don’t have to. States have been lenient so far, but you never know what the future will bring, and besides, why give the enemy something to bring before God?