Web Sales-Tax Bill IS a Tax Increase

The Marketplace Fairness Act also known as the “web-sales tax bill” will end tax-free online shopping and is expected to be passed in the Senate today.

This bill is a tax increase and will burden small online businesses with difficult tax-collection responsibilities. Contrary to popular belief, a state does not have a right to collect sales taxes from a business not within said state.  See the 1992 Quill v. North Dakota SCOTUS decision and Article 1 Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution (“No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.”).  Therefore, states are not attempting to collect sales taxes that they are already owed since they do not have a Constitutional right to this money in the first place.

 Rep. Steve Womack (R., Ark.), the chief House supporter of the bill says “There's a lot of political difficulty getting through the fog of it looking like a tax increase."  Well, consider this Congressman Womack, if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.

The bill would enable states to require out-of-state merchants to collect sales tax on goods purchased online by their residents. This bill will ignore the 1992 Supreme Court decision that states don't have the power to tax unless the retailer has a physical presence, such as a store or warehouse, in that state.

Brick-and-mortar stores are not being hurt and the current law is completely fair.  Brick-and-mortar stores should collect sales tax to pay for fire, police, and other services. However, if the business has no physical presence in a given state, then there is no reason to collect sales tax for that state.  Online businesses that are neither served, nor represented, by out-of-state governments, should not bear the cost of their revenue collection. The sales tax should be based on the location of the online retailer not the buyer.  When a person from NY visits Disney World in FL, is Disney World required to find the buyers exact home address and remit the sales tax to NY?  NO.  So, why would it be fairer to require online retailers to remit taxes to a state they do not have a physical presence?  Also, what is to stop buyers from buying from international sellers to avoid this archaic proposed sales tax system?  Constituents will know this is a tax increase and if House Republicans pass this bill there will be a grass-roots voter backlash.  By not passing the Marketplace Fairness Act the House Republicans will show their base that they really do not want to raise taxes.  As part of a compromise, the voters were burned when the Bush tax cuts expired.  I say no taxation without representation!

Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) told a crowd of constituents in Racine, Wisconsin “I'd like to think there's a way to address this inequity without giving the government power to expand taxing authority beyond that intent," he said.

Rep. Mo Brooks (R., Ala.) said he is undecided, and is hearing from constituents on both sides of the debate. While he was in Huntsville, Ala., recently, constituent Matthew Sorrell went to the legislator's local office and urged him to vote against the bill. As the co-founder of Infinity College Bookstore, an online retailer that buys and resells college textbooks, "I might have to go through all the transactions that we've had every month and figure out based on the ZIP Code that the book was shipped to what jurisdiction they're in and then remit the tax to each one," Mr. Sorrell said.

Marty Abroms, of Florence, Ala., an accountant whose clients include the store chain Books-a-Million, wants Mr. Brooks to support the legislation. "The only way they're going to save our brick-and-mortar retailers is to get this bill passed," he said in an interview.  Mr. Abroms should consider becoming an accountant for companies that are not brick-and-mortar book stores.  With the advent of nook books and the fact that brick-and-mortar book stores never have the book I want in stock… Mr. Abroms needs to accept that times have changed for the better and we’re never going back.  Welcome to the 21^st century.

Pushing for the legislation are traditional retailers, small and large, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which has its headquarters in Mr. Womack's district; Amazon.com Inc., the online retailer that is expanding its physical presence across the country; and state and local officials from both parties.

More than 100 entities have disclosed they are lobbying specifically on the Internet sales-tax legislation. Amazon has hired two high-profile former senators, Democrat John Breaux and Republican Trent Lott, to represent it specifically on the sales-tax issue. Amazon paid the two former senators and their firm, Patton Boggs LLP, $220,000 in the first quarter of 2013, according to public disclosure records.

The Retail Industry Leaders Association, a trade group, hired former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a Republican, to lobby in favor of the legislation. The group has paid his firm more than $250,000 since the beginning of 2012.

Opponents include the conservative Heritage Foundation; activist Grover Norquist; lawmakers from states with no sales tax; and NetChoice, a coalition of online businesses that includes News Corp NWSA ., publisher of The Wall Street Journal. EBay Inc. says it would like to see the threshold for exempting sellers raised to $10 million from the Senate bill's $1 million level.

 

 

REMOVE THE Monsanto Protection Act!

REMOVE THE Monsanto Protection Act!

Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) has attached the Monsanto Protection Act Section 735 (HR 933) to the spending bill.  This is the same company which created Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.  Agent Orange is the combination of the code names for Herbicide Orange (HO) and Agent LNX, one of the herbicides and defoliants used by the U.S. military as part of its chemical warfare program, Operation Ranch Hand, during the Vietnam War from 1961 to 1971. Vietnam estimates 400,000 people were killed or maimed, and 500,000 children born with birth defects as a result of its use.^[1] The Red Cross of Vietnam estimates that up to 1 million people are disabled or have health problems due to Agent Orange (Wikipedia).  Not only were the people of Vietnam adversely affected but so were US soldiers. The Department of Justice (Eric Holder) launched an extensive investigation.  This investigation ended abruptly without any explanation.  For more information please refer to the article entitled “Justice Department Shuts down Monsanto Investigation without Explanation”.  http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/monsantoantitrust11282012/

The NRA is CORRECT

Based on all of the rhetoric that has been floating around about the massive shootings in recent history, one would conclude that certain weapons should be banned i.e. assault weapons.  I recently visited the NRA’s website (http://www.nraila.org) and found a host of information that has NOT been properly reported.  First of all, a clear definition of an assault weapon should be given.  There seems to be confusion with the public over differences between fully automatic and semi-automatic firearms.  The difference is that a fully-automatic firearm can fire repeatedly and quickly as long as you hold down the trigger, but a semi-automatic, like any firearm other than a fully-automatic, fires only once when you pull the trigger.  Gun control supporters say that semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15 are “military-style assault weapons” designed for “war” on “the battlefield.” But the military uses fully-automatic rifles, which are regulated as “machineguns” by the National Firearms Act of 1934. I decided to review the Constitution and initially made the mistake of thinking that the “Founding Fathers” did not have semi-automatic weapons in mind when the Constitution was conceived and therefore the Second Amendment was not applicable.  I am a “techy” and I applied this thought process to modern communication to the first Amendment.  I immediately concluded that this amendment would be moot.as applied to modern communication.  As technology has evolved then our interpretation of the Constitution must do so.  I am quite certain the “Founding Fathers” did not have computers, faxes, cell phones, etc. in mind when the First Amendment was conceived.  Our weapons have evolved.  Sticks and stones were our first weapons.  By the time our Constitution was implemented, the basic weapon had undergone major transformation.  For example, in the ancient days, when Egypt was at its peak, the Hyksos invaded it only because they had superior weapons made of iron. They thrust into Egypt using chariots — a tactical and logistical innovation which amazed the Egyptians.  The Macedonians surged ahead of all other civilizations by introducing siege weapons such as the catapult, and field weapons such as the pike, which was employed to deadly effect by heavily armed infantrymen arranged in phalanxes. The Romans subsequently improved the quality and technology of siege equipment, arms and armor, and battle tactics and so on (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_weapons).

Apart from using weapons in combat and warfare situations, they have been used for hunting and gathering since prehistoric times.  A gun has been utilized as a great equalizer i.e., a ferocious animal versus a human or a weaker individual versus a stronger individual).  The Gatling gun is one of the best known early rapid-fire weapons and a forerunner of the modern machine gun. Invented by Richard Gatling, it is known for its use by the Unionforces during the American Civil War in the 1860s, which was the first time it was employed in combat.  The first illustrations of the Gatlin gun date back to 1865 and was patented by the United States Patent and trademark office.  The legal basis for the United States patent system is Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution.  So, the Constitution guarantees the right to obtain a patent on any invention.

Now, let us get back to the latest shooting in Connecticut.  Adam Lanza brought three weapons inside Sandy Hook Elementary school on December 14 and left a fourth in his car, police said. Those weapons were a Bushmaster AR-15 rifle and two handguns -- a Glock 10 mm and a Sig Sauer 9 mm.

In the car he left a shotgun, about which police have offered no details. Lanza used one of the handguns to take his own life, (CNN).  All of these weapons were obtained legally by Lanza’s mother.  The guns appear to have not been properly secured.  Lanza’s mother was at fault for not securing the weapons.  She knew that her son was emotionally unstable.  There was a report that he was seen at the school on a previous day arguing with the principal and other faculty members. Nevertheless, he was allowed access to these weapons and he committed a horrific crime.

There are municipalities across the US that ban law abiding citizens the right to obtain weapons in order to protect their family and their possessions.  I would like to note that there has not been any appreciable decline in gun violence in those areas.  I listened to a CNN host state that weapons should be banned in the US but the track star (blade runner) in South Africa needed weapons for protection.  WOW what a double standard.

Baseline, we need our second Amendment right protected more now than we have ever needed.  REMEMBER:  The Second Amendment (Amendment II) to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights that protects the right to keep and bear arms. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, along with the rest of the Bill of Rights (Wikipedia).