> I seriously doubt all of them have the manpower or money to properly collect sales tax.
Isn't this usually when someone pipes in and says "seems like a good opportunity for a startup"? It's a complex but well-defined domain - perfect for building a paid service. Input to the API is billing zip code, the type of good/service being sold, the date of transaction, and the pretax amount. The lawyers will point out other factors I don't know about. The output is the tax to charge.
Charge by the API call, with different tiers/bulk pricing options for those who need to process many microtransactions versus those who are selling more expensive, shipped goods.
Or do people believe that once a credit card number is used on the internet instead of in a point of sale reader, the transactions really should be exempt from any taxes? I agree it's a lot harder problem to solve, don't get me wrong, but doo people really believe the "correct" solution is to just say "we should never have sales tax on the internet because it's different"?
Edit: If this law passes, such a service would also be an awesome competitive advantage for some of those startup payment processor companies that I see sprouting up.
Current laws, maybe - I'm no lawyer, and won't pretend to know the answer.
But I asked if people actually expect that it reasonably should stay that way. I see many people indignant about the idea of collecting sales tax for internet purchases. I'm not sure if that's because of the undue burden on the collector (a solvable problem) or if they really think interstate transactions on the internet should be exempt from taxation forever.
Yup. SpeedTax, and Avalara are two that I've looked at. Both have SOAP APIs as the primary method of talking to them, and solve the problem in very similar ways.
"Isn't this usually when someone pipes in and says "seems like a good opportunity for a startup"?"
I guess SOPA will spawn some good ideas for startups too. Companies that will scan your website for "violations" and others that are started by lawyers to protect you.
Isn't this usually when someone pipes in and says "seems like a good opportunity for a startup"? It's a complex but well-defined domain - perfect for building a paid service. Input to the API is billing zip code, the type of good/service being sold, the date of transaction, and the pretax amount. The lawyers will point out other factors I don't know about. The output is the tax to charge.
Charge by the API call, with different tiers/bulk pricing options for those who need to process many microtransactions versus those who are selling more expensive, shipped goods.
Or do people believe that once a credit card number is used on the internet instead of in a point of sale reader, the transactions really should be exempt from any taxes? I agree it's a lot harder problem to solve, don't get me wrong, but doo people really believe the "correct" solution is to just say "we should never have sales tax on the internet because it's different"?
Edit: If this law passes, such a service would also be an awesome competitive advantage for some of those startup payment processor companies that I see sprouting up.