I guess I didn’t do a good job of explaining myself. There’s a ten dollar faucet in your showroom that you sell to someone who walks in to make the purchase. You charge him Florida sales tax. If that same customer orders the same ten dollar item on the Internet from me in California (I’m not in the faucet business, but we’ll pretend I am!) he will not pay sales tax because he does not live in California. He is supposed to pay use tax to the state of Florida. Only a handful of people actually do so. So that comes to mean that I now have an advantage over you in the ten dollar faucet business because I can sell them to Florida residents all day long and never collect a sales tax.

On the one hand this is cheating the state of its rightful due and so forth. But let’s think this through to the end. Say I go to Florida on a vacation, visit your shop, like the ten dollar faucet and make the purchase. You don’t say to me, “Show me your driver’s license, because if you’re from out of state I am not required to charge sales tax on this item.” No, the state of Florida requires its sales tax on every item sold in the state of Florida by its brick and mortar outlets. But what do I get in return for the sales tax I am now paying to Florida? Nothing, really. I’m going home in a few days, and my tax money stays behind. But on the other hand… if you later come to San Diego on a visit, come to my shop (it doesn’t exist, but we’re pretending it does), see a ten dollar faucet you like and make the purchase, I am legally obligated to collect California sales tax on the item. So, really, it all comes out in the wash.

If California has more tourists than Florida, California will do better in the long run, which is the argument they use whenever they want to give more tax money to the Chamber of Commerce in these parts, and I suspect, in your parts too.

Where it rubs, and where it’s not particularly fair, is the tax on Internet purchases. If you set up an Internet shopping section on your website, you will only have to collect sales tax on Florida residents, just as I will be collecting only on California residents. And since no consumer really reports those sales and voluntarily pays the sales tax (use tax) to the respective states, it means two things: (1) that amount of sales tax is lost, and (2) those who deal mostly or only in Internet sales have an advantage over brick and mortar outlets that must, by law, collect sales tax on every sale they make.

Everyone who does business legally on the Internet has a business license and whatever kind of license he needs to collect sales tax in his state. Personally, I have made up my mind that I will faithfully report all of my income and so forth, because when I go to bed at night I want to go to sleep. But anyone who makes himself legal is known to the state, as is his income. Collecting sales tax from legal vendors is not a problem.

And that means, in turn, that the solution is simple. Each state that collects sales tax should be empowered to collect said tax on any item sold in their state, whether it is sold on the Internet or not. So now when I sell you my ten dollar faucet on the Internet, you have to pay California sales tax on it. And, in exchange, every state should now be obliged to simply give up on this “use tax” nonsense for items purchased out-of-state. But since they’re not really making any money on that sort of thing anyway, it shouldn’t be a problem.

And from a vendor’s point of view, if I am collecting ONLY one sales tax (which is what I am currently doing), then it is no particular problem to keep track of it. In California, a lot of the communities have added half a cent to the sales tax. How in the world are outsiders going to keep track of something like that? But brick and mortar outlets simply collect the sales tax for whatever city they happen to be located in.

One sales tax to keep track of—that’s simple enough. Do the same for Internet vendors by making a law that says they have to collect the same ONE sales tax any brick and mortar outlet collects, and we’ve achieved equity.

When the Internet began, the idea was that NO ONE would collect sales taxes on purchases as a way of building up Internet businesses. Now they have it to where, say, Rockler, which has outlets in my state, must collect California sales tax. Amazon, which does NOT have a California outlet, collects neither California nor Washington state sales taxes.

California takes the view that if I bought it in Florida, either from an Internet purchase (in which I would pay no taxes) or from an in-the-state-of-Florida purchase (in which I would pay the Florida sales tax) that we’re supposed to be paying a California user tax, because California has, somehow, been robbed of the opportunity of collecting a sales tax on this item.

The better and fairer and easier way to resolve this is for all states that collect sales taxes to collect said tax on every item sold in their state, and ONLY on items sold in their state. It means that California will lose out when I buy something in another state (which they mostly do anyway, because who really reports that sort of thing?), but on the other hand, out-of-state people who buy from California-based Internet businesses will be paying a sales tax that does them no good whatever—just as it would be had they journeyed to the Golden State and made their purchase in person.

I think this is a solution that would be fair to all concerned, from state governments to brick-and-mortar outlets to Internet entrepreneurs.

Joseph: The prob with collecting sales tax is just as you say..knowing all the rules. That is why it should be a flat rate to even the playing field. Surely the govt can figure this out??? Or is it simply too much to ask???

I buy off the internet often.

While I agree it is unethical to seek free professional design advice, then buy from a stranger, there is another aspect from a homeowners point of view. I will interview contractors for a job, or suppliers, and they will tell me the thing I want does not exist, or can not be done, or will cost 10 times more than my budget.

They do that because they do not sell the product I want. Then I’ll go on the internet and find exactly what I’m looking for. It requires lots of legwork from me. If I’m doing all the research, I’ll buy from whoever will give me a good price on the item I want.

I do agree with your comments somewhat. I am one who does not feel the need of an interior decorator (which could be because I really know, or because I simply THINK I know!), but if I did want that kind of advice, I would get a book on whatever subject interested me. This is what I have done with a number of the projects I have pursued over the years. It never occurred to me that I would waltz into an interior decorating firm’s showroom, knowing full well I had no intention of making use of their services, and then ask them a lot of questions. But that sort of thing really just goes back to ethics, which is something people either have or do not have.

Home Depot has tightened up their return policies in recent years, but for a long time if you bought it and didn’t like it, no matter when or no matter how much you may have used it, you could take it back. Because of the woodworking I do, I use a lot of tools and materials, but I am proud to say I have NEVER abused this policy. To give just one example, I once needed a special bit to drive some one-way screws (they go in, but don’t come back out). I knew that it was a five minute project, after which I would never need that tool again. So I bought it, used it, and put it on the shelf in my shop where it still sits. The only way I could live with myself for taking it back would be if, for whatever reason, the bit did not do the job. However, it worked just fine, so the only honorable thing is to pay for the tool. Home Depot is not in the “free rental” business.

I do shop online for various things. It really just depends on what I need and what is available here locally. Sometimes they just don’t have it here, or I can see that, after the first three or four failures at finding it that it’s going to be a long search to find the product, so going online is the way of least resistance.

My fear with the sales tax controversy, though, is that it will somehow get around to where people are paying tax in two states for one purchase. I am in the process of setting up a picture framing business which I mean to pursue online. Under the current laws, I am only required to collect sales tax on California residents. Because you’re in Florida, if you buy from me, there’s no tax to be collected. Florida thinks they should get that tax anyway, but not many, as you pointed out, are going to send it in to them. As a businessman, if I have to know the tax laws of all fifty states, that would be quite a burden, and, I think, an unfair one.

However, if you came to San Diego and purchased a frame from me in person, I would collect the sales tax, just as it would be if I had set up a brick-and-mortar outlet. I personally don’t have a problem with collecting California’s sales tax on every sale I make, regardless of where people live, even those who are in Germany (hey, it’s an Internet business!). Because, as I say, if this were a brick-and-mortar, that is what I would be doing anyway. Everyone who buys the product pays the sales tax. And that would be equity.

As for the main thrust of your first posting, the looky-loos… those, in some respects, we will always have with us. It’s like the people who buy a dress for a wedding, wear it once, and return it. They applaud their cleverness to their friends, but, really, it’s a form of theft. You see a lot of that sort of thing, really, the people who get detailed plans for a project, then take them down the street and commission someone else, because he bid lower. I think all you can do is nip as much of it in the bud as you can, and then thank god that you are not yourself such a despicable human being.