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Technology Stocks : Gateway (GTW) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bill Jackson who wrote (7311)	8/18/1999 11:46:00 PM
From: IceShark	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8002

Bill, I have been known to buy or sell an option or two. -g- Re: Sales Tax. From a practical perspective GTW is, as I noted, SOL. They inked the agreements (which were likely more on the order of statutory settlement agreements rather than commercial contracts) and even if they could wiggle out of the terms, the Country Stores would have to be closed down too, which would be a huge hit at this point. I see you are a Canuck so maybe you don't see the stores - they are now all over the place and have established nexus in most of the USA. But you are right that one day the sales tax playing field will be leveled, one way or another. Which is why GTW really can't do anything but slog ahead on the course it has set. Heck, they are on the Federal Commission that has been set up to figure out and recommend what to do about this, so guess how they will lean. As an aside, I believe one reason GTW blinked on the sales tax issue is that the States threatened to subpoena their customer sales records. Every sales tax statute I have seen also has a sister provision called "Use Tax" which holds the resident purchaser liable for use tax if sales tax hasn't been paid (of course almost no one ever complies with this). With high value items like computers it might be possible for the States to send out bills for use tax and still collect enough to pay for all the effort. And boy, customers would be pissed off. -g- Illinois already has done something similar with the furniture outlet sales out of North Carolina and O'Hare customs declarations. He, he he. As technology improves, especially the database info, States will be able to go after end purchasers much easier. Slap high penalties on for noncompliance and they will probably be able to collect from an AMZN book buyer on a couple hundred bucks worth of annual untaxed sales. Think convergence. -g- This will be a big upcoming drag on all the end user Inut companies (as opposed to biz to biz commercial transactions). As if they don't have enough problems with no profits already. And the existing Federal moratorium on "new" internut taxes only applies to new taxes. Like States dreaming up an ISP connection fee to be used to fund inner city schools buying computers, phone lines, ISP connect, etc, similar to the 911 emergency fees tacked onto your telephone bill. But, Use Tax already exists. And if I were a flunky State Revenue employee, I would be charging into this area full steam ahead. -g-