13 thoughts on “Going Galt In California”

  1. Some people argue that the national online retailers should have to collect sales tax the same as local brick and mortar stores. However, they handwave away the fact that keeping track of all the different tax rates and districts is a nontrivial expense. A local physical store only has to know the tax rate for the immediate area while a national retailer needs to know them for the entire country.

    Here’s an example: I live in Colorado Springs. The sales tax here is as follows:

    2.5% Colorado Springs (as of January 1, 2002 through present)

    2.9% State of Colorado
    1.0% El Paso County
    1.0% Pikes Peak Rural Transportation Authority
    7.4% Combined Sales and Use Tax

    I live near the city limits, so people living just a few hundred yards away don’t have to pay the city tax rate. Keeping track of the boundaries for the taxing districts is part of the burden – cities sometimes annex surrounding county areas.

    Now, Colorado has over 60 counties and quite a few cities and towns with their own taxing districts. In all, there are likely more than 100 different sales tax rates in Colorado alone. Add in all of the other states with sales taxes (over 40 of them) that can and do change. Who is going to keep track of all that along with the geographic info on all of the tax boundaries keyed to the addresses people enter when purchasing things online?

  3. They should require the refugees to give up their California insanity before being allowed to vote in their new state. When I moved to Colorado 25 years ago (courtesy of the Air Force), I saw bumper stickers that read “Don’t Californicate Colorado.” Even then, California refugees were moving here only to turn around and demand that Colorado make the same mistakes that drove them to leave their home state. They proved you don’t have to go overseas to be an Ugly American. In time, they messed up Colorado, too.

  4. Those no-good California expats should never have been allowed to leave. It’s their duty to pay their fair share! They should be extradited, and made to do business in California!

  5. Yeah, they got the vote, they should abide by the results! Stupid libertarian TP/JBS/PBJ/WTF utopians!!!11ELEVEN!!

  6. Texas is being inundated with Californians. Fortunately, like our native pond scum, the imported homos and Communists cannot survive outside of the sheltered confines of the stagnant pool that is Austin. Only we of the Anglo-Mex-Vietnamese axis — that is, real Texans — can live in the real world.

    Fun Fact: we native Texans hate Austin almost as much as we hate Washington, D.C.

  7. LarryJ here in NH retailers need to multiply the price by 0 to get the tax. This however is only temporary until enough Flatlanders from MA retire or move here and vote in sufficient moonbats to impose taxes.

  8. Phil, every state has their own mix of taxes to fulfill their revenue needs. Some states have no income tax but have high sales and property taxes. Other states have no sales tax but use other forms of taxation to raise revenues. Due to their oil revenues, Alaska has pretty low taxes but they have high prices due to their unique logistical issues. Many states have income, property and sales taxes along with other taxes. Keeping track of who owes what on taxes for any individual purchase is a non-trivial expense.

    From what I’ve heard, New Hampshare does a pretty good job of keeping spending under control so they don’t need to raise as much revenue as other states. That’s commendable and something to fight for as economic refugees come in and start clamoring for the same government services and “free stuff” they’re accustomed to. It’s a pity we can’t legally deny economic refugees the right to vote in state and local elections for a period of time (say 10 years).

  9. If online retailers have to collect sales tax at all it should be on the assumption that the point of sale is where the order is processed. After all, if I cross into Fayette County, GA to buy a TV, I don’t pay Coweta County sales tax. If I were to go to Alabama to buy the same TV I’d pay Alabama sales tax, not Georgia.

    If it just so happens that as a result all the online retailers set up their order processing in New Hampshire, well, that can be a lesson to Massachusetts.

  11. Well, yes, McGehee, but, technically, as a resident of Georgia, you are supposed to remit sales receipts to Alabama and Georgia every year so that you can get a tax refund from Alabama and pay in to Georgia’s sales tax coffers.

    Nobody ever does that, of course, except on things like cars and trucks, because, unlike LED TV’s, people are required to register a car or truck in their home state.

  12. It’s amazing to me that when CA threatened to smash peoples toes with a hammer, that they MOVED the foot! How odd.

    Larry J,
    we have that same problem here in the SE with people from the NE. They move down here and proceed to vote for and push for exactly the same kinds of stuff that caused their problems in NY, MA. PA, etc. Then they complain about taxes going up.

    What’s that definition thingy about repeating the same actions and expecting different outcomes?

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