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Strategies & Market Trends : ahhaha's ahs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ahhaha who wrote (3234)	10/20/2001 12:55:06 AM
From: Don Lloyd	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24758

ahhaha - It would only alter the IRS. It would create a new bureaucracy much like the IRS to administer the tax. There are many problems in such administration like eminent domain. States have the right to levy a sales tax. If there is a federal tax on sales, there is a friction between the two entities. No doubt a million schemes are available to manage this friction, but that defeats part of the purpose. Then there is the consideration that such a tax punishes artificially spending and consumption. We've spent 100 years punishing one side, saving and investment, so why alleviate one for the other? What qualifies as a sale liable for federal tax? You can't all say all sales. You'd have to say, final sales. How can that be differentiated? From memory, I believe the intent was to piggyback the states and compensate them for serving as the collection agents. The states seem to be able to differentiate, and of course, there can be a lot of theoretical errors that may not really be significant unless they produce some really bad incentives, like, say, the present system. -g- The pseudo rebates would be handled by the SS administration. (fixed amount checks, not requiring any documentation other than identity existence) The single point retail tax places the support of the Federal Government out in the open, with no place left to hide, including no more wage withholding. Regards, Don

To: ahhaha who wrote (3234)	10/20/2001 2:04:15 AM
From: GraceZ	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24758

What qualifies as a sale liable for federal tax? You can't all say all sales. You'd have to say, final sales. How can that be differentiated? I can tell you right now the way the states do it is confusing and contradictory. I'm considered a manufacturer so all my machinery used to create photo prints is exempt from sales tax as well as any supplies I use to make these prints. Office equipment is not exempt and neither are office supplies. I now use computers to make prints but I can't use the same computer to make prints that I'd use to do my accounting and word processing on unless I want to be charged sales tax on it and pay personal property tax on it. Now my clients who are photographers are considered service so they have to pay tax on their cameras, but not on their film which they resell to their clients....but then their clients frequently have resale licenses so no sales tax is due. Now the photographer who is considered not to be a manufacturer but in service when he buys his camera equipment, becomes a manufacturer when he sells his pictures directly to the client who is not tax exempt and is told he has to charge sales tax on the whole job, even his fee which most consider a "use fee". Yet half my clients have accountants that say this isn't necessary, that they don't have to collect sales tax at all on their fee and they can elect to pay sales tax on their purchases and simply pass that through to their clients like a garage mechanic would do. You would think the easiest way to settle the matter would be to call the state sales tax authority and ask them which is correct but I can tell you right now that you will get two different contradictory answers to the question. Even asking the question puts you into a Kafka-like world that you can't get out of so most just simply try to do their best to fly under the sales tax agents radar. Recently I was sent a special sales tax form to fill out. They asked me to do a self audit for the previous three years and list all the office equipment and supplies that I had bought over the Internet and then to pay sales tax plus penalties on the total. Everyone I know with a resale number got one. I did what everyone else did, I sent it back full of zeros. So far I haven't heard back.