It sure can be discouraging to be a Nevadan.
We rank #1 in unemployment, foreclosures and high school dropouts... and now Nevada's Democrat-controlled legislature may soon encourage big businesses like Amazon and Zappos to leave the Silver State. Yes, you read that right. We may end up ranking #1 with the dumbest legislature in the nation.
The Nevada Legislature is considering an amendment to Senate Bill 34 that would require online retailers with a real-world store or other facility in Nevada to collect sales tax on all Internet transactions with that company, regardless of whether Nevadans could have purchased the items at a Nevada store. What that means: Nevadans would have to pay sales tax on Internet purchases from companies that have no actual retail stores in Nevada.
Currently, large retail stories like WalMart, Target, Kohl's and Champs are required to charge Nevadans sales tax on purchases from their internet sites, because they also have brick and mortar retail stores in Reno. But if we purchase items from an online store that doesn't have a retail store in Reno, from sports retailer Eastbay or drugstore.com, for example, we currently pay no sales tax. The tradeoff for consumers has always been shipping costs, which often equal or exceed what taxes would have cost.
But the Retail Association of Nevada wants to change all that for Nevadans who shop online. It mistakenly contends that large online companies like Amazon and Zappos have an unfair advantage over local retailers because online Nevada customers pay no sales tax. Their rationale is that although these and other retail giants have no actual retail stores in Nevada, they DO have a distribution center or warehouse facility in the Silver State. Ergo, Nevada should make them charge Nevadans a sales tax on all their retail Internet purchases.
Using their logic, if Eastbay or drugstore.com opens so much as an office in Reno, Nevadans would now have to pay sales tax on their online purchases.
The Retail Association of Nevada feels justified in changing current law to force this new sales tax on Nevadans, saying, "The change would create a level playing field for online and real-world stores and generate as much as $16 million annually in sales tax collections."
But who pays these sales taxes? We do, the downtrodden and broken people of Nevada.
Ads on radio and TV tout the laws as "more fair" for local retailers, who claim they can't compete with non-taxing retail giants. But groups like the Retail Association and our legislature miss the bigger picture, spelled out in plain English by a lobbyist for online giants, Amazon and Zappos. "[This amendment]…could prompt [the companies] to pull [their work forces] out of the state." Uh-oh. More jobs would leave Nevada, which is not good for ALL of us.
At a time when Nevada has the highest unemployment rate in the nation, our fellow retailers and state government want to pass a law that will 1) tax all Internet sales to Nevadans if the online company puts so much as an office in Nevada, 2) pile more taxes on the tired, broken backs of our citizenry, 3) encourage big companies to leave Nevada and 4) discourage new companies from coming to the Silver State.
How can we be that dumb? Are we Nevadans so discouraged that we will let liberals grow-grow-grow our state government’s control, power and oppression over We, the People? Perhaps we are. We did re-elect Harry Reid, after all.
Like Kelly's article? Click "Subscribe" by her picture; befriend her on Facebook and Twitter.
Want to read more?--> View all of Conservative Kelly's articles!
Comments