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Another Big Camera Store Fails:

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Corkcampbell said:
"smarten up?" Too simple. Newspapers and journals have covered this topic for years.
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and it's still not fixed. shouldn't be surprised I guess.
Corkcampbell said:
According to multiple articles, the reason that this hasn't been enacted is because of pressure from small retailers (including anyone selling anything on eBay) who have to get and maintain expensive software programs to determine how much tax to withhold to someone buying from any place, such as a rural district in some state.
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ehhh... not really. but good on you for exaggerating the process. ebay would essentially have state based look up tables that would calculate the tax based upon your shipping address. poof done.

they already have that actually. lol. why? because you have to remit the sales tax if someone is already from your state. so they already look up the seller's address, and compare that against the ship to address and determine the rate of taxation.
Corkcampbell said:
Of course, large retailers, such as Best Buy and Amazon, could do this, but it would be discrimination against the smaller ones who can't afford to do it,
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how could they not afford to do it? oh please..
Corkcampbell said:
as they would have to raise prices to pay for the system, or just fold.
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most of these companies already have that built into their e-commerce engines. this isn't unique. why is it that americans always think they were the only ones to have these problems and they are so hard to overcome, and so unique?

it really isn't hard to have a state based tax lookup. Really. any e-commerce package already does it, because there's actually other countries / states / provinces out there in the world. Not to mention they already have to have it in place to accept sales from their own state, if that state has sales tax.

the only thing it complicates is quarterly remittance of the sales tax to the appropriate state. of course of the states got together then they could make it so that everyone fills in the remittance for each state on a form, and give their own state the total amount, and the states simply transfer it between themselves.

and if it was that much of a problem, the states could make it so that the retailers keep a portion of the tax. that portion diminishing annually.

There problem solved and it didn't even cost millions.
 
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The sales tax issue is nothing but a bunch of bureaucrats fighting for their turf. It is just like the rolling out of Obamacare. Why do we need 50 different programming to roll out one program? Granted that each state may have some unique requirement. But the crust of the program is the same. It came down to, the bureaucrats of each of the state wanted to have their little fingers in the pie.

For internet sales, all we need is ONE federal sales tax for any internet sales. The sellers have to collect and pay one sales tax to the federal. Then federal would in term distribute the sales tax to the states according to the population, or federal income taxes collected by states. Why is it so complicated?

If any state wanted to argue that they have a more complicated, or better system, they can always withdraw from receiving the distribution and wait for their citizen to self report. I beg no state would be that stupid thought.
 
rrccad said:
it really isn't hard to have a state based tax lookup. Really. any e-commerce package already does it, because there's actually other countries / states / provinces out there in the world. Not to mention they already have to have it in place to accept sales from their own state, if that state has sales tax.
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Sales tax rates don't vary just by state. Some localities have their own sales taxes, on top of any state ones. Sales tax rates may also vary depending upon types of merchandise – e.g., some states exempt groceries, some exempt a limited amount of clothing, etc.

Then there are tax holidays. If online shoppers are assessed sales/use tax at the time of purchase, they should get the advantage of these holidays.
 
Eamon Hickey said:
Richard Frederick said:
Nobody likes taxes, but allowing out of state merchants to dodge state sales taxes put a number of marginal brick and mortar outfits out of business and we are all to poorer for it.
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This issue has been around for decades in the U.S., but the Internet has intensified it because it's now so much easier for anyone to find, and buy, products from out-of-state retailers. The friction involved in out-of-state purchases is much, much lower than it was when I worked in a California camera store in the late 1980s.

But it was an issue for us even then. We always had a small number of customers who asked us to swallow the state sales tax and, when we didn't, they'd buy mail order.

It's a fundamental unfairness in U.S. retailing, but not one that I think has much chance of ever being changed. Our federal system, and a long history of states guarding their autonomy, makes it a difficult knot to untangle.
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That is just a USA problem , but I don't see the difficulty .

It shouldn't matter where the customer is : if a shop in New York makes a sale , they should charge the tax and New York should benefit from business done in their city . That would be an instant level playing field .

Where I live here in Scotland , I have seen many camera shops close over the years , similarly hi-fi shops ( similar retail market and sales models ) , but there remain a few good local shops and a couple of specialist chains .

i often look at dealers websites and buy online , it is equally likely to be a local place in Ayr or Glasgow , or a dealer in the North of Scotland or down in England - I pay the same 20% VAT as a retail customer regardless ; even if I were to buy from Germany it would be the same - the only exception is if I buy a used item privately .

The camera market is in decline firstly because of phone cameras which has ripped the bottom out of the market and stopped people buying entry level cameras , from which they will upgrade eventually .

Why don't camera shops start selling phones and photo related accessories - add on lenses , loupes , add on battery packs , storage devices ... ?

Secondly , the downturn in the economy , people have less spending power . Some camera kit is very expensive - why don't dealers follow the motor industry with finance packages designed to encourage sales and keep customers in the fold -

PCP ( personal contract purchase ) where you pay a deposit and finance part of the item over , say , three years - after which you either pay a settlement to own outright , or hand the item back as your deposit on your next item , and the cycle repeats - the handed back item is sold on as used and everyone wins .

Lease - you effectively 'rent' a camera over a fixed period . Since it isn't 'sold' I guess there would be no 'sales tax' in the US , if the item breaks during the lease period it isn't your problem as you don't own it and you just as for it to be fixed or replaced . At the end you could have an option to purchase the used item at a low price , or hand it back as a down payment on your next one .

In both of the above there would be an incentive for coming back to get your new item from the same dealer .
 
felix from the suburbs said:
I live in Canada where the Canadian dollar is worth roughly 75 cents US. I also buy way too much photo stuff as that is my main hobby. However, even with the weak Canadian dollar I still check with B&H to compare prices with local camera stores. And, there are times, when even allowing for currency exchange, it is still cheaper for me to order from B&H and that's what I do. So, I expect that high volume stores like B&H will be the benchmark against which local stores will be judged and I am not sure how many of these stores can drive the volume necessary to be competitive in a shrinking market. I also notice that B&H have branched out into audio equipment and other non photo stuff and I can't see many regular camera stores carrying and financing such a wide mix of inventory.
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I have never bought from them , and most likely never will ( unless something completely unobtainable elsewhere ) . Reasons ?

Distance : US-UK delivery charges are prohibitive , then there are import duties , lack of consumer protection on goods from outwith the EU , warranty issues on new items sourced outside U.K. , and lastly - why should I bother when there are excellent retailers here with whom I have a good relationship and get brilliant service .
 
Corkcampbell said:
"smarten up?" Too simple. Newspapers and journals have covered this topic for years. According to multiple articles, the reason that this hasn't been enacted is because of pressure from small retailers (including anyone selling anything on eBay) who have to get and maintain expensive software programs to determine how much tax to withhold to someone buying from any place, such as a rural district in some state. Of course, large retailers, such as Best Buy and Amazon, could do this, but it would be discrimination against the smaller ones who can't afford to do it, as they would have to raise prices to pay for the system, or just fold.

Another factor is the cost and complexity states would encounter trying to police every online purchase, which would also have privacy concerns that would meet strong resistance and perhaps be unconstitutional, which is why most states just require (but cannot enforce) that such purchases are reported by the consumer.

This has been covered many times in these forums.
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Pontoneer said:
That is just a USA problem , but I don't see the difficulty .

It shouldn't matter where the customer is : if a shop in New York makes a sale , they should charge the tax and New York should benefit from business done in their city . That would be an instant level playing field .
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That's not how the States play the interstate sales game. If someone in Massachusetts purchases an item over the Internet from a seller located in Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania won't charge any sales or use tax (as far as I know) – either for its own Treasury, or for the Massachusetts one. But Massachusetts will want to tax the sale, and since they don't have Constitutional authority to force the out-of-state vendor to be their collector, they will use their state income tax return to force the buyer to report and pay the tax.

So if you were that Pennsylvania shop, and Congress changed the rules to force you to be the collection agent for sales / use tax on out-of-state sales, it would not be as easy as applying Pennsylvania tax rules to every sale. You would need to apply tax rules from all over the U.S.
 
That's kinda what I said in an earlier reply, but maybe I didn't describe the situation properly because it wasn't understood. A lot of people just don't understand how decentralized the US is, and how some things just can't be done by states (VAV other states), and that the constitution maintains this situation. The colonies united to throw out the British in 1776 and then, in 1782, went back to their separate ways.

In the same way, all localities in the US have their own school districts; sometimes more than one (not counting private ("public" in some places). I live in a small city located next to a larger one. In fact, almost across the street from the larger one. One offers Spanish and another European language as high school requirements, but my little place emphasizes Korean, Spanish, and Chinese, languages far more relevant in today's world. In today's world, do want your child to learn Chinese or French? Duh. People with children buy their houses and choose their school districts based on this.

As incomprehensible it may be to some, it seems to work.

--
"Knowledge is good." Emil Faber
 
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Pontoneer said:
Pontoneer said:
I just think possibly the rights of employees need to be reconsidered in this very volatile modern market.
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Do you guys not have redundancy rights over there ?
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There's unemployment insurance. The length of time that one can be on that varies (the linked document says "a maximum of 26 weeks in most States").

United States Department of Labor – State Unemployment Insurance Benefits

Then there are COBRA provisions. These let someone remain on their former employer's group health insurance plan for up to 18 months, by paying the full cost of the health insurance plan … if there is one.
 
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Yes, and it can usually be extended for another such period. Plus, some companies must offer severance pay and other benefits, such as job searching help, counseling, etc., due to unions or the company's "mission." I was laid off once (along with 700 others) because the company moved its headquarters and received a $25,000 severance. Also, most states, probably all, have a way to offer cheap medical coverage during the layoff period. Additionally, one can move his/her 401K plan to a new company or just leave it alone and start a new one with the next job, which is what I did. So, I have two retirement programs, along with social security. With Obamacare, the medical coverage follows in a similar way. If you die and have kids under 18, they (and your spouse) can pick up your benefits. Again, every state is a little different.

It should be noted that not everyone is covered in this way. Say, for example, you start a restaurant and never pay into social security, you're going to lose much of that benefit when you retire or are unemployed. It's not free, but you do have the choice to refuse it. I know one person who did that, and didn't have a spouse who paid into it, and he really regretted it later.

--
"Knowledge is good." Emil Faber
 
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Pontoneer said:
This notion of taxing according to where the customer is is just stupid - so complex and unworkable .

Sellers everywhere should just charge sales tax for every sale and pay them to THEIR state - it's a tax on sales made in their state and will all balance out and be fair because EVERYONE pays it . Simple to administer too as the retailer simply pays a %age of every invoice as tax , a flat 10% would be very easy to calculate and pass on .

If other states feel they aren't getting a bite of the pie , they need to incentivise retailers to open in their areas .
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Changing which state gets the tax won't solve all of the issues.

Consider two states, state A and state B, located next to each other. State A has a sales tax rate of 6.25%. State B has a sales tax rate (on many goods) of 0.00%. Adopting your proposal solves the issue of use tax collection – by getting rid of it. If a citizen of State A drives to State B, buys something there, pays 0.00% sales tax, and takes it home, and pays no further tax, he or she won't (in this scenario) be violating any law.

Unfortunately, that's not the end of it. What the retailers in State A wanted was for the buyer to be slapped with the 6.25% tax of State A, as a disincentive to shop in State B. What the politicians in State A wanted was to collect their 6.25% sales / use tax – and increased corporate State income tax from any local business that got the sale. While State B is happy, the business in State B is happy, and the buyer in State A is happy, the political dynamics will not have changed from what they are today.

So – if, for the sake of argument, you're taking the side of the retailers in State A – what you want to see is something like this:

From the perspective of any given individual, the sales tax rates are the same everywhere, and sales tax collection is enforced at the point of sale.

If you combine this with each State and locality wanting to have their own tax rules, then you get the whole mess about each store having to know and enforce all of the tax rules from all over the country.

A much less messy implementation might be to strike the first part of the clause:

The sales tax rates are the same everywhere, and sales tax collection is enforced at the point of sale.

This would require cooperation of all of the States and localities – not just to agree upon common rates, but to agree upon common definitions for the items to which they apply. But if they did this AND combined it with your proposal (give the tax to the State in which the vendor is located), they would level the playing field.

For sales taxes, anyway – if not for shipping.
 
Tom_N said:
Pontoneer said:
That is just a USA problem , but I don't see the difficulty .

It shouldn't matter where the customer is : if a shop in New York makes a sale , they should charge the tax and New York should benefit from business done in their city . That would be an instant level playing field .
Click to expand...
That's not how the States play the interstate sales game. If someone in Massachusetts purchases an item over the Internet from a seller located in Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania won't charge any sales or use tax (as far as I know) – either for its own Treasury, or for the Massachusetts one. But Massachusetts will want to tax the sale, and since they don't have Constitutional authority to force the out-of-state vendor to be their collector, they will use their state income tax return to force the buyer to report and pay the tax.

So if you were that Pennsylvania shop, and Congress changed the rules to force you to be the collection agent for sales / use tax on out-of-state sales, it would not be as easy as applying Pennsylvania tax rules to every sale. You would need to apply tax rules from all over the U.S.
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No , it just needs a change in the law - and you guys have a new president who easily could do just that - sales would be taxed at the point of sale - and the tax would be on the business done at the point of sale .

If the state where the buyer is feels they are losing out , then they should encourage vendors to open on their turf by giving subsidies in business rates for startups ( subsidies cost nothing as they get nothing if there are no new businesses ) , thus encouraging new businesses and improving the economy , more business is good for everyone : more people earning ; more prosperity in the community ; more local taxes being raised - everyone wins .

Oh , and an income tax report should be about a tax on income ( earnings ) - not outgoings ( spending ) . Vendors should collect the taxes on sales , and pay them wherever they are .

The state where the buyer lives didn't generate any revenue from that sale , so have no right to it .

--
With kind regards
Derek.
 
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Tom_N said:
Pontoneer said:
This notion of taxing according to where the customer is is just stupid - so complex and unworkable .

Sellers everywhere should just charge sales tax for every sale and pay them to THEIR state - it's a tax on sales made in their state and will all balance out and be fair because EVERYONE pays it . Simple to administer too as the retailer simply pays a %age of every invoice as tax , a flat 10% would be very easy to calculate and pass on .

If other states feel they aren't getting a bite of the pie , they need to incentivise retailers to open in their areas .
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Changing which state gets the tax won't solve all of the issues.

Consider two states, state A and state B, located next to each other. State A has a sales tax rate of 6.25%. State B has a sales tax rate (on many goods) of 0.00%. Adopting your proposal solves the issue of use tax collection – by getting rid of it. If a citizen of State A drives to State B, buys something there, pays 0.00% sales tax, and takes it home, and pays no further tax, he or she won't (in this scenario) be violating any law.

Unfortunately, that's not the end of it. What the retailers in State A wanted was for the buyer to be slapped with the 6.25% tax of State A, as a disincentive to shop in State B. What the politicians in State A wanted was to collect their 6.25% sales / use tax – and increased corporate State income tax from any local business that got the sale. While State B is happy, the business in State B is happy, and the buyer in State A is happy, the political dynamics will not have changed from what they are today.

So – if, for the sake of argument, you're taking the side of the retailers in State A – what you want to see is something like this:

From the perspective of any given individual, the sales tax rates are the same everywhere, and sales tax collection is enforced at the point of sale.

If you combine this with each State and locality wanting to have their own tax rules, then you get the whole mess about each store having to know and enforce all of the tax rules from all over the country.

A much less messy implementation might be to strike the first part of the clause:

The sales tax rates are the same everywhere, and sales tax collection is enforced at the point of sale.

This would require cooperation of all of the States and localities – not just to agree upon common rates, but to agree upon common definitions for the items to which they apply. But if they did this AND combined it with your proposal (give the tax to the State in which the vendor is located), they would level the playing field.

For sales taxes, anyway – if not for shipping.
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Yes , the sales tax needs to be the same everywhere , and collected at the point of sale .

This should be dictated by central government so that all states abide and collect for all sales made on their turf .
 
Pontoneer said:
Tom_N said:
So if you were that Pennsylvania shop, and Congress changed the rules to force you to be the collection agent for sales / use tax on out-of-state sales, it would not be as easy as applying Pennsylvania tax rules to every sale. You would need to apply tax rules from all over the U.S.
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No , it just needs a change in the law - and you guys have a new president who easily could do just that - sales would be taxed at the point of sale - and the tax would be on the business done at the point of sale .
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What you're talking about is using Federal law to try to supersede State law, in a way that might not sit well with a number of States (especially those with high tax rates).

My guess is that a lot of States would fight such a move in court. They might not succeed – but I suspect that they would try.
Pontoneer said:
The state where the buyer lives didn't generate any revenue from that sale , so have no right to it .
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The States that are complaining are doing so precisely because they want to be able to force vendors to be their collection agents for the case where you say they "have no right to it". Maybe there are States complaining because they aren't imposing sales taxes on goods sold by local vendors to out-of-state customers. But if so, I haven't heard about it.
 
A basic problem is that different places have different overall tax structures. You can't look at sales tax in isolation. Some states do not have an income tax but tend to make up for the lost revenue through sales tax. That is pretty common in cities also where some basically live off of sales tax. I know some places that do not have property taxes on real estate. Without a high sales tax, they would have little income. Thus a common, nation wide sales tax, is loaded with all sorts of difficulties.

Perhaps the best solution is for vendors to go online as well has have stores like B&H. Thus the customer benefits. This probably won't help small stores but they already had big problems before sales tax and likely wouldn't survive anyways.
 
Tequila MockingjayBird said:
techjedi said:
Tequila MockingjayBird said:
IIRC, when I purchased a car in NJ and my home address was in PA, I was charged PA tax.

Same should apply to make it a fair game. But till that time I admit I am enjoying the tax free benefits.

--
you need a team to realize your dream
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Technically you are supposed to report out of state sales to your local state and pay the tax as "use tax", but it is impossible to enforce. Cars are an exception because you have to register the car in your state and then must provide details about how you acquired it. They can then charge you use tax, etc.
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Yup. I get that part too.

That said, the default would and should be to charge sales tax. The customer can then ask for a refund from that state since his/her address is out of state.

That is how the EU works. non EU visitors are charged tax and the visitors have to apply for tax refund at the airport by swearing under oath that the product purchased was not used in the EU.

--
you need a team to realize your dream
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The perfect bureaucratic solution. Hire more bureaucrats to monitor and refund money that did not have to be paid in the first instance. Then increase the price or tax to cover the new administrative overhead. This could be whole growth activity. :-)

rs
 
Tom_N said:
Pontoneer said:
That is just a USA problem , but I don't see the difficulty .

It shouldn't matter where the customer is : if a shop in New York makes a sale , they should charge the tax and New York should benefit from business done in their city . That would be an instant level playing field .
Click to expand...
That's not how the States play the interstate sales game. If someone in Massachusetts purchases an item over the Internet from a seller located in Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania won't charge any sales or use tax (as far as I know) – either for its own Treasury, or for the Massachusetts one. But Massachusetts will want to tax the sale, and since they don't have Constitutional authority to force the out-of-state vendor to be their collector, they will use their state income tax return to force the buyer to report and pay the tax.

So if you were that Pennsylvania shop, and Congress changed the rules to force you to be the collection agent for sales / use tax on out-of-state sales, it would not be as easy as applying Pennsylvania tax rules to every sale. You would need to apply tax rules from all over the U.S.
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There are already a few online services for web merchants that handle computing proper sales tax based on the shipping address and the item(s) purchased.

I would expect that if on-line merchants were required to collect sales tax based on shipping address, that there would be many more companies offering such services.
 
Pontoneer said:
Eamon Hickey said:
Richard Frederick said:
Nobody likes taxes, but allowing out of state merchants to dodge state sales taxes put a number of marginal brick and mortar outfits out of business and we are all to poorer for it.
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This issue has been around for decades in the U.S., but the Internet has intensified it because it's now so much easier for anyone to find, and buy, products from out-of-state retailers. The friction involved in out-of-state purchases is much, much lower than it was when I worked in a California camera store in the late 1980s.

But it was an issue for us even then. We always had a small number of customers who asked us to swallow the state sales tax and, when we didn't, they'd buy mail order.

It's a fundamental unfairness in U.S. retailing, but not one that I think has much chance of ever being changed. Our federal system, and a long history of states guarding their autonomy, makes it a difficult knot to untangle.
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That is just a USA problem , but I don't see the difficulty .
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Pontoneer said:
It shouldn't matter where the customer is : if a shop in New York makes a sale , they should charge the tax and New York should benefit from business done in their city . That would be an instant level playing field .
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Except it is unconstitutional. New York cannot impose their taxes on the citizens of other states and other states cannot force a New York merchant to collect tax for them.

The whole proximity issue (Internet, mail order) is a loophole created by our unique mix of freedoms & States rights. This doesn't mean there aren't all kinds of politicians attempting to apply pretzel logic to the situation to satisfy their greed. Even the supposedly tax-hating Republicans grab for as much tax as they can collect as long as it doesn't impose too much on their fellow wealthy constituents.

Pontoneer said:
Where I live here in Scotland , I have seen many camera shops close over the years , similarly hi-fi shops ( similar retail market and sales models ) , but there remain a few good local shops and a couple of specialist chains .

i often look at dealers websites and buy online , it is equally likely to be a local place in Ayr or Glasgow , or a dealer in the North of Scotland or down in England - I pay the same 20% VAT as a retail customer regardless ; even if I were to buy from Germany it would be the same - the only exception is if I buy a used item privately .

The camera market is in decline firstly because of phone cameras which has ripped the bottom out of the market and stopped people buying entry level cameras , from which they will upgrade eventually .

Why don't camera shops start selling phones and photo related accessories - add on lenses , loupes , add on battery packs , storage devices ... ?

Secondly , the downturn in the economy , people have less spending power . Some camera kit is very expensive - why don't dealers follow the motor industry with finance packages designed to encourage sales and keep customers in the fold -

PCP ( personal contract purchase ) where you pay a deposit and finance part of the item over , say , three years - after which you either pay a settlement to own outright , or hand the item back as your deposit on your next item , and the cycle repeats - the handed back item is sold on as used and everyone wins .

Lease - you effectively 'rent' a camera over a fixed period . Since it isn't 'sold' I guess there would be no 'sales tax' in the US , if the item breaks during the lease period it isn't your problem as you don't own it and you just as for it to be fixed or replaced . At the end you could have an option to purchase the used item at a low price , or hand it back as a down payment on your next one .

In both of the above there would be an incentive for coming back to get your new item from the same dealer .
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