iTunes sells 2 Million Songs

[Wry Cooter]

Your state has no sales tax. You pay no sales tax.

Your state has sales tax, you buy web/mail order from company that has a store in your state, you pay sales tax, even if it is shipped from another state.

Your state has sales tax, you buy web/mail order from a company that does NOT have a store in your state, you do not pay sales tax.

If you live in a shack in a few acres in Montana you have declared independent territory and are guarding with shotguns, you do not pay any tax, but you don't receive many imported goods either.

 

[scem0]

It's good to see apple has hit a jackpot here...

now we just have to wait for MS and other companies to copy it.

 

[Phil Of Mac]

Originally posted by Ugg
I've just spent the last half hour searching for information on the subject and it's a mess.

Nowhere could I find anyone questioning the legality of states taxing their citizens on purchases made from outside the state via the internet or via a paper catalog. You're barking up the wrong tree here Phil.

Well, no, not quite. I'm just the first one to bring up the issue. And my question's been answered to my satisfaction.

If no one was ever the first one to bring up an issue, issues wouldn't be brought up.

Originally posted by Ugg
The two solutions I can see that would work is to either institute a federal VAT to be added to every purchase and then be distributed to states, counties and localities. That would mean more federal government intrusion into states rights to tax their own citizens it would also be impossible to do so fairly. Hardly a popular solution. The other would be to entirely abolish the use tax and institute a strict income tax. In general, income taxes are much less regressive and therefore considered more fair.

There has actually been a bill proposed to abolish the federal income tax and replace it with a sales tax (not a VAT, VAT's are horrible because they hide themselves). I suppose a federal sales tax could be used to make sales taxes uniform and to distribute to the states evenly. That's how Canada's GST works, I believe. Or they could have a national flat income tax redistributed the same way. But it really won't matter unless we do some serious reform of government overall. The problem isn't how we distribute the tax burden, it's the tax burden itself.

And there is no fair tax.

 

[Snowy_River]

Originally posted by Phil Of Mac
Aha. It's the state residency situation. Well, I guess my question has been answered.

Glad I could be of service.

 

[Snowy_River]

Originally posted by Wry Cooter
Your state has no sales tax. You pay no sales tax.

Not quite true. If you are purchasing something to use in a state with sales tax, even if you are a resident of a state without sales tax, you are still required to pay the sales tax. For example, if you buy a meal in a restaurant, you have to pay the tax on that, regardless of your state of residence.

Your state has sales tax, you buy web/mail order from company that has a store in your state, you pay sales tax, even if it is shipped from another state.

Your state has sales tax, you buy web/mail order from a company that does NOT have a store in your state, you do not pay sales tax.

This is how it is now, due to the presence of a law prohibiting internet sales tax. However, this is not how the states want it to be, and the law is going to expire soon (end of the year?). If congress doesn't reinstate it, things could get messy. (Many small internet sales companies could be forced out of business due to the increase in overhead of keeping track of all the different sales tax amounts, and sending the appropriate tax to the appropriate state revenue offices.)

If you live in a shack in a few acres in Montana you have declared independent territory and are guarding with shotguns, you do not pay any tax, but you don't receive many imported goods either.

Yes, but you forgot to mention that you'd also be surrounded by FBI and ATF agents...

 

[Phil Of Mac]

Originally posted by Snowy_River
Yes, but you forgot to mention that you'd also be surrounded by FBI and ATF agents...

Not in Montana.

This actually happened in 1996, and since the Montana state constitution precludes federal agents from entering Montana in force without state approval, the FBI asked the Montana Highway Patrol to apprehend the tax resistors. The Montana Highway Patrol apprehended them without any loss of life or limb (unlike Ruby Ridge or Waco, both undertaken by FBI and ATF). They then billed the FBI for the costs of apprehending the suspects.

So, you'd be surrounded by Montana highway patrolmen

 

[visor]

Originally posted by Phil Of Mac


I don't think the state government of Washington has the legal jurisdiction to impose taxes in Oregon. If I buy from a company in Oregon, there's no Oregon sales tax, so there should be no tax on the purchase. If Oregon wants to, they could tax me. They could very well send the money to Washington. But that's up to Oregon to decide whether or not to do that.

Thats a strange theory you have there.
I'll tell you how sales tax is handled where I come from. It is quite simple really:
You pay the tax of the location you are when you buy it.
I think you'd agree on that one.
Now the Internet is a bit different, because there is no physical store, so you go and pay taxes of the state you live in (billing address you provide)
So if you sit in Texas and fill out your internet orderform - you pay Texan salestax, because that is where you performed the act of buying.
It doensn't matter where the Internet store is located, because you don't go there. To come around to apple:
Apple has its products manufractured in taiwan, would that mean I have to pay taiwan Salestax? No I don't do that.
Applestore Europe has it's headquaters in Cork, Ireland. Do I have to Pay irish salestax? No, I don't. All I pay is german salestax because that's where my billing address is.
So what Aplle does is collect the VAT, alias salestax from me, and forward it to germany.
This is not a great effort really, every company has to do that, and few die because of having proper -how do you call it?- booking? whatever.

 

[daRAT]

Funny, I just got the email for one of the 21 songs I purchased from Apple Music and saw the sales tax. In Maine our state tax form has a mandatory spot for sales tax from out of state purchases. Normally, for 41,000$ income this is about 25$. While not a lot of money, (this no way covers the purchases I make online), it still bugs me. What if I made no out of state purchases? I would still have to pay this, no way to get around it.

I am sure other states do this also, so how many of you want to bet once laws are passed that you have to be taxed on online purchases that the states will still "double dip" ?

Back to the Topic;

AppleMusic I give it * * * * * Five out of Five stars. Listening to the people bitch about the selection put me off, but after browsing the lists of artists I can't see why there is all the whining? I could have bought a hundred songs and still not been done. Found odd songs here and there, that I haven't heard in years, live versions of favorites that I haven't heard.

so "blah" to the whiners, and to Apple bring on the Windows client!

 

[Snowy_River]

Originally posted by visor
Thats a strange theory you have there.
I'll tell you how sales tax is handled where I come from. It is quite simple really:
You pay the tax of the location you are when you buy it....

Well, that's not quite how it works in the US. If you are an Oregon resident (where there is no sales tax), and purchase a durable good (like a computer, a car, etc.) in another state, you can present your I.D. showing that you are from Oregon and make the purchase without sales tax.