I know public services are not free, they are paid for from taxes and fees from the general public. However when the population feels squeezed from the cost of living and people do take shortcuts. Since taxes are being increased due to businesses and people going Galt and fleeing to places such as Utah and Texas, the Democratic Party legislators are trying to squeeze a lemon that barely has any juice.
Californians and many individuals in other states have to pay something called an use tax if you bring an item from outside of California to use it in the state. Many people don’t know that they are required to remit the use tax to the Franchise Tax Board for their purchases on Amazon or Tiger Direct.
And even if you do know you are required to pay this use tax, since the big retailers are unwilling to directly collect this use tax. So if you buy a USB Hub and end up with a $1.54 use tax bill, who is going to help keep track of this if merchants are not mandated to collect the money? However California should worry about the big fish like people buying an ipad or a laptop computer instead of worrying about the nickels and dimes. Instead of collecting the tax, the out of state merchant would send an electronic notice to the FTB notifying them that you bought an ipad and you will have to pay the $38.75 before the next tax period.
Small businesses would be intimidated at the cost of buying sales tax databases for the many parts of this country, but if you want people to comply you got to make it easy like State Controller Chang’s Cal-File tax program.
How regulation is implemented affects how people comply with regulation.
Since Amazon does not want to be non-paid employees of the Franchise Tax Board, they ended up axing many Amazon affiliates which will kill jobs that end up paying California state income tax. Even though I personally applied for this, I never earned anything because honestly my readership was not big in clicking affiliate links.
But instead of having to worry about the use tax, how about trying to keep Intel, Apple, Ebay, Carl Karcher Enterprises in California and make a better business climate so we could have the jobs and tax revenue. Intel may have offices and their executives in our state, but their American plants are surely not in California anymore.
I know many of us are fed up that the costs are going to rise higher for college and public health and safety is on the chopping block, but I guess if we want a better California we should not shirk on our public responsibilities. Maybe that $50 we forget to submit to the FTB could help add some classes to the local community college or help a disabled person with cerebral palsy with their dental care.
