Filed under: Products and services, Consumer experience, Internet, Google (GOOG), Yahoo! (YHOO), eBay (EBAY), Amazon.com (AMZN), Personal finance, Small business
There’s a bit of tension in Pennsylvania regarding auction laws in that state and eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY). It seems that Pennsylvania law requires that eBay sellers should have auction permits and regulators there have chosen to begin enforcing the law. The situation is revealed in a blog post by Terrence O’Brien at Switched.com .
It’s not surprising to me that this has come to the surface and I think it’s symptomatic of what’s to come. Internet taxation is a hot topic and various state authorities are jockeying for position. While the taxation of Internet access is a proposition which has been almost put to rest for good, the taxation of World wide web retail sales is still very much up for grabs. This assertion of law by Pennsylvania regulators is simply indicative of the state’s desire to have a piece of the action. I believe it foretells of the stresses to come.
An AOL news poll shows that 83% of nearly 24,000 respondents feel that eBay sellers should not be required to have an auctioneers permit. That sentiment reverberates throughout the World wide web. We should remember though, that sales made via the Internet often supplant sales that would otherwise be made through a brick and mortar retail outlet. I have the ability to assure you that say taxing authorities are weighing the effects of that change in dynamics carefully.
Should says lose sales tax revenue simply by virtue of a change in the sales venue? I don’t think they’ll stand for that. I still maintain my position that World wide web sales tax solutions should be addressed from the World wide web side of the equation rather than from the regulators side. We need a comprehensive solution on a national scale before the individual says come in and make eBay into a serious mess.
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