Any telecommuting fpDevelopers watching this?

[CDAY]

Nancy Palmquist wrote:
> Kenneth Brody wrote:
> 
>> Quoting Walter Vaughan (Wed, 30 Mar 2005 07:20:46 -0500):
>>
>>
>>> Seems the state of New York thinks that it has nexis[0] if you remotely
>>> perform work  for a company located in NY. While at first glance this is
>>> a reasonable request of the state, it's probably apply to independent
>>> contractors soon.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/05/03/29/2347245.shtml?tid=98&tid=123&tid=103&tid=17 
>>
>>
>> As a New Yorker, I'm not surprised at this.  Last year the state said
>> you have to pay New York sales tax on items bought outside of the state
>> but used within the state.  (And not just things bought through the mail,
>> but everything.  If you go on vacation and buy something and bring it 
>> back
>> to New York, you need to pay New York sales tax.)
> 
> 
> Do you do it?
> 
> They have a similar law here in Allegheny County - 7% sales tax, which 
> requires you to pay if you purchase something in an adjacent county with 
> only a 6% tax.  I am required to collect the 7% since I am the point of 
> sale for anything I sell in PA, not just what is sold within my county.
> 
> Right now, I am not required to collect tax for purchases sent outside 
> the state.  I don't expect that to last forever as someone will want tax 
> on those sales.
> 
> What I do object to is being required to act as a tax collector at all. 
>  If the states all got together and set a uniform tax, and just said 
> that if you sell it collect this much tax, no matter where you are or 
> where it is going.  You send that in to the state and they sort out some 
> sharing method.  Everything sold PA to PA - stays in the state. 
> Everything sold PA to NY is split between PA and NY.  I would just need 
> to tell them my sales by state - they could work it out.
> 
> Probably a nightmare but it would be applicable to internet sales, 
> retail sales and mail order sales and would allow the rate to be 
> decreased since all the people that do not pay tax and all the 
> differences between states would be evened out.  I think it would be a 
> boost.  But I know it will never happen.  How in the world will they get 
> 50 states to agree on anything.
> 
> Nancy
> 


Nancy, all 50 states will agree only on one thing -- we are going to 
collect OUR tax from you and you can stuff it if you don't like it.

Michigan has one of the highest cigarette taxes in the country. Seems 
this high tax has resulted in a lot of on-line and mail order cigarette 
purchases by MI smokers in an attempt to avoid the high tax. Recently, 
MI went to those out of state vendors and obtained the names and 
addresses of the MI customers.  This amount may be faulty but it seems 
to me MI sent a tax bill to one man who owed over $1,800.00 in unpaid MI 
cigarette taxes. Yes, I doubt the guy will get credit for the state 
cigarette tax he did pay to the source state.  This points up Ron's 
suggestion that if it appears on your credit card statement you better 
declare the purchase if it was not taxed by your state.

Ohio & Michigan have had reciprocal income tax agreements for many 
years. You pay income taxes in the state you live in, even though income 
came from the other state. City income taxes, deducted off each pay 
period are not reciprocal but can be deducted from total income before 
calculating the state tax.  Ohio, direly in need of more money, last 
year wanted to break this reciprocal agreement. Thus, my neighbors who 
work in Toledo would have to pay both Ohio and Michigan Income taxes on 
their total income earned in Ohio.

All out of state purchases are to be declared on your income tax filing 
and the use tax paid with income tax. Some larger retailers already 
charge MI sales tax on mail order purchases. Thus, the amount on the 
credit card statement may already include state sales tax.

Ohio sales tax is 6%. However, lower government units can levy sales tax 
up to 2% in addition to the state tax. This results currently in 6.75%, 
7%, 7.25%, 7.5%, 7.75% sales tax rates in various counties/cities.  All 
this has been broken down by the state on a county/zip code basis. That 
is, a zip code overlapping two or more counties can have three different 
tax rates. This file currently is 11,719 records. It involves the 10 
zip, so the rate lookup can be done from the street address. Or, do a 
zip pop-up, county/rate selection done by the data input person.

Beginning July 1, 2005 all retailers in Ohio who deliver in their store 
will collect their local percentage.  If they ship outside their store, 
they must collect the percentage of tax of the destination zip/county. 
This would seem to apply only to mail order type operations.  But, I 
have one customer who is very close to a state university whose students 
frequent his store and ship gifts back home all over Ohio and out of 
state. I hope I get all the bugs worked out by July 1.

A breakout report of sales by zip/county/tax rate/amount collected 
must accompany their sales tax payments to the state. Apparently the 
state will then allocate funds to the proper zip/county not necessarily 
  that of the seller.  Yes, the report is the easy part.

Any tax exempt sales records must carry the Ohio tax exempt number.

All this is being done under the guise of the multi-state (national) 
"Streamlined Sales Tax Project", which will probably be coming to your 
area soon............

What we really need here is for the Supreme Court to further violate the 
Constitution by deciding the issue by "making a law" based on some 
obscure policy set down by the European Union.

Charles Day