"Expect sales taxes to be collected on goods bought in all states via
mail orders..."
Expect? You mean it's not done already? Per the Wisconsin State Income Tax Booklet which appeared in my mailbox this morning, page 8, 3rd column:
"If during 1997 you made any purchases from out-of-state firms on which sales and use tax was not charged, you must report Wisconsin sales and use tax on these purchases on line 18..."
Books, CDs, cassettes, furniture, clothing, and computers are given as examples. This includes anything brought into the state of Wisconsin on which sales tax was not paid. Non-compliance is almost universal and among people I've breached the subject with most claim to be ignorant of the law. Even among those who would never cheat on their taxes this tax is too odious to pay heed to. Our fine citizenry in Western Wisconsin are further criminalized by the fact that Minnesota has no sales tax on clothing and Wisconsinites flock across the border to avoid 5% sales tax and in some cases additional county sales taxes.
I saw a CNN report a couple of years ago when I was still in Guatemala. The reporter chastised Americans who were ignoring the law and causing state government deficits to mushroom through their failure to pay the tax. WHAT A HYPOCRITE! I bet she never paid the tax once in her life.
The State of Wisconsin has begun a series of random letter writing and tax bill sending to coerce payments from shocked overtaxed payers. I suspect certain out-of-state companies are releasing names and addresses of buyers to the Wisconsin Dept. of Revenue. However they can't ferret out more than a fraction of those in violation.
I have not paid Wisconsin sales tax on my poison darts from Colombia, my machetes from Guatemala & Mexico, or my lucky charms from Ireland. Those are the only items I will admit on this public forum to bringing into Wisconsin untaxed. There's such a thing as a statute of limitations you see, tsk, tsk. Fortunately, freedom tends to be a stronger force than pompous politicians and I expect the populace to prevail on this one. :) |
