Tag: More Taxes

Internet retailers that have a physical presence or affiliated companies in Michigan, such as Amazon.com, would have to collect sales taxes on purchases under legislative proposals debated Wednesday in a House committee.

The House Tax Policy Committee held its first day of public testimony on Republican-sponsored legislation that would change the definition of legal presence for out-of-state companies that sell merchandise toMichiganians on the Web. Amazon owns Brilliance Audio in Grand Haven.

The Republican response:

"These are not bills that constitute new taxes, rather they're measures that aid in (the collection of) taxes that are already owed," said state Rep. Rob VerHeulen, R-Walker.

Blow it out your ass, Rob.  If you don't have the funds currently, it's a new tax.  And, it's a nightmare of paperwork for business.

Rep. Jon Switalski, D-Warren, said the bill sponsors can't sugar coat the end result of taxing Internet purchases after years of Michigan consumers enjoying tax-free Web shopping.

"We talk about this as fairness ... but the reality is people are going to pay more after these bills pass than they're currently paying," he said.

HB 4202

Eileen Kowall - (primary) Andy Schor, Kurt Heise, Jim Ananich, Phil Cavanagh, Peter Pettalia, Bill Rogers, Wayne A. Schmidt, Matt Lori, Hugh D. Crawford, Ellen Cogen Lipton, Bruce R. Rendon, Kevin Daley, Jon Switalski, Marcia Hovey-Wright, Frank Foster, Rob VerHeulen, Stacy Erwin Oakes

Introduced by Rep. E. Kowall, on February 6, read a first time, and referred to House Committee on Tax Policy.  Printed bill filed on February 7.

HB 4203

Rob VerHeulen - (primary) Andy Schor, Kurt Heise, Jim Ananich, Phil Cavanagh, Peter Pettalia, Bill Rogers, Wayne A. Schmidt, Matt Lori, Hugh D. Crawford, Ellen Cogen Lipton, Bruce R. Rendon, Kevin Daley, Jon Switalski, Frank Foster, Eileen Kowall, Stacy Erwin Oakes

Introduced by Rep. R. VerHeulen, on February 6, read a first time, and referred to House Committee on Tax Policy.  Printed bill filed on February 7.

I mention before about the Governerd's scheme that Two Penny Jenny tried with raising taxes. Well, a mere 6 days after writing about it, there you have it.  Lansing Nerdpublicans have resurrected the 2012 dead.

Of course, its not as if there will be anyone to collect from except Obamaphone zombies.

The City of Detroit for its part must give up a portion of its taxes to guarantee the authority debt. A new authority of course means new high paying jobs for all manner of unqualified cronies:

"(5) Notwithstanding subsection (4) or any ordinance of a city to the contrary, a city that forms a lighting authority shall pay $12,500,000.00 annually to that lighting authority from the proceeds of the tax authorized under this act. ..."

Of course the tax rates will have to be allowed to increase.

The Michigan Retailers Association is urging the state to send Amazon.com a bill for uncollected sales tax.

The trade association has been pushing for state legislation to make Internet retailers collect Michigan's 6 percent sales tax to make it a level playing field between online and brick-and-mortar retailers.

States can't require out-of-state businesses to collect their sales taxes unless they have a "nexus," or physical presence there.

Amazon has a wholly owned subsidiary, Brilliance Audio, that is located in Grand Haven. The company was acquired in 2007 and produces audio books.

Rest here

Frilliant!  Don't work to lower taxes for yourself, raise them on others.  Keep it up jackasses, and you'll have everybody avoiding Michigan like the money grubbing plague to reside and do business in that it is.

Speaking for myself, I've taken note of those on the MBA Board and the businesses they are tied to because they won't be seeing my money in the future.

Certainly this is the premise which the main street fairness act is being pursued. It is a means under which sales nexus will be identified, and taxes would be collected for sales made online for anything coming into the state that was purchased online.  It has the support of our governor, and looks to be heavily pushed with the claim that even elected conservatives are interested in it.

Not this one.

This is another one of those deals where instead of removing the regulatory misery under which retailers and business owners operate, it is presumed the better way toward fairness is to inflict it upon as many others as possible.   They are suffering, so can you. Share the pain.  And our governor Rick Snyder is now embracing it.

What will this mean to online wholesalers like myself?

I will ultimately have to deal with a number of sales tax licenses and a nightmarish bureaucracy entanglement.  I will have to report to not only my own state, but others within this compact agreement to be able to ship within those states legally.  I will not be able to ship to my customer's customers in Michigan directly, without revealing the transparent drop ship patterns.  Other states that are not a part of the compact would have their own plans which would cause harm to my model (California is already doing this) by imposing their own nexus rules even possibly based on volume shipped to their states.

It will hurt folks using my business model from the crushing paperwork aspect alone.

How often to lawmakers have a chance to be legitimate patriotic heroes?

Last week we talked about the ridiculous new "Patriot Taxes" passed by [ahem..] House Republicans.

By way of a refresher, the supposed conservative caucus passed House Bill 4293, a bill that sponsors would have us believe is designed to open the door for more fireworks here in the state of Michigan.  What sponsors didn't tell you, and were hoping you'd never find out, is that they loaded the bill up with FOUR NEW TAXES on patriotism.

They doubled the sales tax, imposed giant new taxes on businesses selling fireworks, imposed new transfer taxes on "licenses" to sell the fireworks.

And, they included language opening the door for and encouraging local city, township and village governments to impose their own taxes on fireworks without including any limits on the new local taxes whatsoever!

Only 8 of 63 House GOPers voted NO on these new taxes, a shameful showing for even the most milquetoast "Republican" caucus.

You can't make this stuff up, and if you could, who would believe you?  If you aren't already sitting down, you might want to pull up a chair.  This one's absolutely ghastly.  I know, that's fitting, given the season, but the real trick isn't being played on Halloween--it's being played on the 4th of July, patriotism and taxpayers.  What's more, it's being played on each of us by some of our ghoulish comrades, the Republicans.

As a Michigander, you're likely aware that current state law imposes some pretty serious restrictions on the type of fireworks we can purchase.  If it fires out of a bottle, soars through the air, or explodes, its pretty illegal.  Sure, there's a public safety argument, but there's a bigger liberty argument which is why dollars to donuts, if you're a regular reader of this site you're probably also a proponent of more freedom, not less.

It's that truth that makes what House Republicans did last week that much more frightening.  Last week the GOP controlled House of Representatives approved House Bill 4293, a bill that sponsors would have us believe is designed to open the door for more fireworks here in the state of Michigan.  What sponsors don't tell you, and were hoping you'd never find out, is that they loaded the bill up with FOUR NEW TAXES.  FOUR.  NEW TAXES.

Michigan Republicans in the legislature are literally taxing patriotism.

Cherry said Michigan's underground water belongs to the public. Cherry said the tax would generate $118 million, with $100 million earmarked for the Michigan Promise grants.

About 96,000 Michigan university students had expected Promise grants this school year ranging from $1,000 to $4,000.