Skip to main content

New legislation would do away with tax-free online shopping

online shopping
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Say goodbye to tax-free shopping! Yesterday, the Senate voted for a bill that if legalized, will take away a nice perk we’ve all taken for granted while shopping online. This bill is called the Marketplace Fairness Act, which would force online retailers to tack on a sales tax for all online purchases. The bill will be voted on in the Senate for a final time on May 6.

The bill would change a 1992 law that didn’t require online-only retailers to pay a sales tax in states that require retailers to charge a sales tax unless this retailer had a brick and mortar store in the United States. Right now, how online shopping works is that if you’re shopping for something on BestBuy.com and Best Buy has a physical shop in your state, you’ve had to pay your state’s sales tax. However, if you bought something from Etsy, and the seller didn’t  have a brick-and-mortar location, you didn’t have to pay the tax. If the proposed legislation passes, you will start paying that tax. With this bill, the state you live in will collect taxes for everything you buy online.

There are big retailers supporting the bill, says the Wall Street Journal, including Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and Amazon. Obama threw his support behind the bill as well. It’s sensible that retailers being taxed already would support a bill that takes away the advantage that smaller, online-only outlets have over them. Many of these online-only retailers are able to cut costs by being available on the Internet only, and they also offer customers a tax-free options – clear advantages over big box and chain stores.

“Best Buy strongly supports the bill in Congress to level the playing field between multi-channel retailers and online-only retailers by allowing states authority to apply sales tax collection laws fairly to all sellers, regardless of selling channel,” a Best Buy spokesperson tells us.

She argues that the “retail environment” is far different from when the original laws were written – 1992 was a very different age for e-commerce. “Fair competition is good for communities and consumers,” the spokesperson adds. “Best Buy has seen signs of increased online revenue in states where Amazon.com is collecting sales tax. We expect that if Best Buy is seeing benefits from a level playing field then other main street retailers are as well.”

EBay is one retailing giant that isn’t 100 percent on board, though. While it’s not out to shut down the Senate bill, the company is looking for laxer restrictions to benefit its vast network of sellers since their are a few glaring issues for those on the opposing side of the bill. The bill, after all, could affect secondhand sellers that use eBay as an e-commerce platform. While the bill affects small e-commerce shops with more than $1 million in sales, eBay Chief Executive John Donahoe wants that threshold pushed up to $10 million.

“The campaign to expand Internet sales taxes has a lot of money, a lot of lobbyists and PR firms. They have a lot of resources. But their idea is not popular, and at the end of the day, you can dress a pig up but it still stinks,” Donahoe tells WSJ.

Topics
Francis Bea
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Francis got his first taste of the tech industry in a failed attempt at a startup during his time as a student at the…
How to change your language in Google Chrome on desktop
Chrome OS

Google Chrome supports a wide range of languages. While it'll default to English in most cases, there's nothing stopping you from changing its settings and displaying pages in Spanish, French, or dozens of other languages.

Changing your default language in Chrome takes only a few seconds, and the technique used is the same across Windows and Mac. Aside from changing your language, note that Chrome now gives you the option to automatically translate pages written in another language – making it easy to read content from around the globe.

Read more
23 of the best Netflix hacks, tips, and tricks
The Netflix home screen.

Netflix is one of the most popular streaming platforms for all things movies and TV shows. Home to an immense library of titles, the Netflix archive is constantly changing and evolving, and so are the many ways you can use your Netflix account. 

For instance, did you know you can access region-locked Netflix shows and flicks by using a VPN? Or that you can disable that pesky Autoplay feature? There are tons of Netflix hacks, tips, and tricks out there, so we’ve gone ahead and rounded up all of our favorites! 
Expand your streaming with a VPN

Read more
How to make a GIF from a YouTube video
woman sitting and using laptop

Sometimes, whether you're chatting with friends or posting on social media, words just aren't enough -- you need a GIF to fully convey your feelings. If there's a moment from a YouTube video that you want to snip into a GIF, the good news is that you don't need complex software to so it. There are now a bunch of ways to make a GIF from a YouTube video right in your browser.

If you want to use desktop software like Photoshop to make a GIF, then you'll need to download the YouTube video first before you can start making a GIF. However, if you don't want to go through that bother then there are several ways you can make a GIF right in your browser, without the need to download anything. That's ideal if you're working with a low-specced laptop or on a phone, as all the processing to make the GIF is done in the cloud rather than on your machine. With these options you can make quick and fun GIFs from YouTube videos in just a few minutes.
Use GIFs.com for great customization
Step 1: Find the YouTube video that you want to turn into a GIF (perhaps a NASA archive?) and copy its URL.

Read more