I'm sure there will be an internet sales tax. There is too much money
involved for politicians to not tax it. Since this is inevitable, I
think the best thing to do is design a tax system that causes the least
complication for retailers. I propose the following:
1) An internet sales tax based solely on the shipping address.
2) The tax rate be set at 5% (no more then 7%).
3) The money is collected by the IRS or a separate federal sales tax
division.
4) The collected money is divided as follows:
4a) 1% goes to the federal government general fund.
4b) 3% goes to the state according to item 1 above.
4c) .9% (or less then 1% depending on the amounts involved with the
rest going to the federal government) goes to R&D for the internet,
support of public exchange points, support of public high speed links,
and the rest goes to college/university scholarships, general research,
the current general research emphases should be development of new new
sources of energy such as fusion, wind, water, etc.
4d) .1% should go into an emergency relief fund to help deal with
emergencies so relief organizations do not have to wait for congress to
authorize funds. This money would also go to the military to cover
costs of military assistance when military resources are used to
transport relief supplies any where in the world.
5) All merchants have to report is $$$'s collected by city, state,
zip/postal code, and country.
6) Other countries can sign on to the tax agreement by meeting the same
requirements for simplicity, ie reporting is done like item 5 above and
each country can decide how to apply the 5% between federal and local
authorities.
7) Tax should be collected on all sales, no exceptions even if the sale
is to a government, church, state, college, university, etc.
This is my basic opinion and plan. KEEP IT SIMPLE!!!!
