You've clearly never been through a sales/use tax audit as a business.

They do not feel like it's unconstitutional, and are not afraid to enforce it. it's not a "moral force" - it actually is the law. You cannot get out of state entities to collect sales taxes for you, but if they can show that you have nexus in a state, they can make you collect them. If you buy things from anywhere, in or out of state, as a purchaser you must pay use tax on it. It's not a suggestion for the ignorant - it is the law that you report your untaxed purchases.

Technically you owe this on everything, even those things that have been taxed by other states - it's just that most states agree to reciprocity.

There is very little gray area here. As an individual they probably won't go after you, but businesses that are supposed to collect sales tax (including those without a physical presence) and pay use tax - they go after you like wolves.

A universal rule for everyone would be a dream for those that process sales taxes. It's ridiculous the amount of time that is spent figuring out which sales are taxable, what jurisdiction those are in (the state, county, city, LOST, misc taxes) and how to report and pay those.

I was thinking the same things as I was playing sim city the other day....man it would be nice if this game was synched to the cloud...

Given the fact that we're talking about AMD and Nvidia, my guess is that it was a thoughtful decision.

The fact that they have walked away before, that AMD is in previous consoles, and that everyone is continuously crying (from the tech world and wall street alike) that AMD is near it's end (even though it's not), it sounds like they might have made a good decision.

AMD is going to spend a lot of time making a low margin product that is going to be outdated next year but one that they have to keep spending resources and time on for years. Nvidia is going to be spending their time on supercomputer applications, drivers, and pushing their image as a higher end card.

Sometimes you walk away from a business deal because you want your competitor to win it.

It's not just 50 states, its 50 states and each taxing jurisdiction in those states. City, county, local, and special taxing jurisdictions make sales and use tax incredibly complicated.

Then you are probably already not following the law. Most states require that you report any goods you buy where sales tax is due, but where the retailer did not collect sales taxes.

I'm going to assume you aren't reporting those purchases at the end of the year (I believe the statistics show most people don't) but that does not mean that it's not a requirement. This legislation is about making it possible for states to collect taxes that are already due in a manner that traditional brick-and-mortar already have to deal with.

It is much more challenging when all your data is in the cloud. You're communications might be secure, but if the low-level tech hired by the subcontracted firm that supports the datacenter for the company that the government has hired for "the cloud" decides to download all your information, then it doesn't matter how secure your communications are.

And who notices when all the corporate data you have, which can be accessed by anyone in the world with just a username and password, starts getting downloaded in central China, or Estonia?

Or who cares? That cloud provider lets you setup usernames and passwords, and tell you it's secure. Your employees go home, where they've recently downloaded "AVG Super Microsoft Spyware Buster Plus" for a small fee, and now your corporate data is available on bittorrent.

If you call that cloud provider and complain, they say "our users can work anywhere in the world, it's "the cloud

Actually, I think this will be going away in the next 10-15 years. Sure, stupid users will still exist out there, but I see 3 year olds texting now. The idea that you "learn" computers is going away.

Kids are learning how to use computers, iPads, and random electronic interfaces before they can read. Just in the people we've hired in the past 5 years I see a huge difference. The "experienced" computer user from 5 years ago has a harder time learning new software than the "inexperienced" (right out of HS and no training) computer users today.

They might need help and have stupid questions, but I think the days of "I don't know how to do this because it looks different" are going away.

I cringe when I hear of small shops that host their own email. I've seen vets and dentists that run their own outdated, unpatched, backup-deficient exchange servers. Even for companies that have 50-100 people, outsourcing email can be a very good practice. It's cheap, relatively secure, and has a professional team behind it. Once you get above 100 people or so, have a real IT crew and budget, you have to really think about the cloud.

When it goes down, there's basically nobody to call, and if MS or Google decides that you are going to change platforms or security settings, there's really nothing you can do about it.

I actually do complain about other companies receiving subsidies, but given the fact that this story was about solar and natural gas, that is what we are discussing here. However, they do benefit from a number of subsidies not available to other industries, but that's a very complicated issue to discuss in a comment (which is why I've given a range).

Corporate welfare is a bigger problem in this country than many other types of handouts, and giving them to the most profitable companies, that are granted exclusive rights to drill by the government, can easily be argued that it against the public interest.

Fossil fuel subsidies aren't just a problem in the US, but around the world subsidies are an issue. The IEA claims they are the biggest enemy to green energy.

Just because many companies have their hand out doesn't mean it's alright for fossil fuel companies to do it. We should stop where it makes sense (ie grossly profitable industries that don't compete in a free market) and support them where they do make sense (ie young technology that could eventually get us out of middle eastern interests and leave the planet easier for our children to live in).

I find people that don't complain about fossil fuel subsidies don't have an axe to grind; they tend to not care enough to be informed.

We do all choose to consume those fossil fuels, but that is exactly why it doesn't make sense to subsidize them.

We are going to buy them anyway, and they are going to make billions in profits. Why should we all pay taxes to pay oil companies so they can sell us gas cheaper? It doesn't make sense at all.

It does make sense to subsidize investment in cleaner, newer tech. It is harder to sell, but better in the long run for us. You subsidize it until you can make something better and cheaper. You don't subsidize something everyone is going to buy anyway.

Why would I give you 50 cents to sell me something 40 cents cheaper?

That's pretty much what Congress is made up of now.

I don't know why everyone is being so hard on them. They've been pretty bored lately, with all the healthcare, debt ceiling, spending, and military issues all being recently solved.

No, I think the the Fox commentator meant that Germans are brighter than the Americans when it comes to solar energy policy.