Blog post at LP.org:
Republicans claim to oppose high taxes, but they vote for more Big Government — and higher taxes. The latest case in point is a U.S. Senate vote to pass an Internet sales tax bill that would force online retail outlets to start collecting taxes on behalf of state governments.
A majority of Republicans in the U.S. Senate (26 yeas, 19 nays) voted for the massive tax hike, joining Democrats in making online purchases more expensive for consumers, harming small businesses, and fueling ever more wasteful government spending. This come less than three months after Republicans in Congress gave the nod to massive tax increases on New Year’s Day.
The bill will soon move on to the House.
If passed, this new tax will be one more power grab by Big Government Democrats and Republicans catering to special interests who want higher government spending, or who want to harm their competition. Many large chain retailers, rather than try to persuade lawmakers to cut all sales taxes, lobby them to jam taxes on their online competitors — their own customers be damned.
For more than 40 years, the Libertarian Party has been the only political party calling for bold reductions in taxation at every level, including repealing the income tax and abolishing the Internal Revenue Service. The LP platform specifically opposes “any legal requirements forcing employers to serve as tax collectors,” a mandate that Republicans and Democrats now hope to foist on hundreds of thousands of new online businesses.
Two-time LP presidential candidate Harry Browne pointed out that if Libertarians have a chance to slash Big Government, the massive levels of taxation we have today simply wouldn’t be needed.
“If we reduce government to its constitutional limits, there will be no need for a personal income tax, estate tax, gift tax, capital gains tax, Social Security (FICA) tax, or corporate income tax,” Browne wrote in his book The Great Libertarian Offer. “And there will be no need to replace these taxes with a flat tax or a sales tax — or to increase the other taxes the federal government collects now.”
He continued, “Your children will pay no more federal income tax, and your grandchildren will never carry the tax burden you’ve had to endure. Imagine how much better their lives will be.”
Republicans and Democrats won’t even put the brakes on runaway government growth, let alone cut Big Government to its constitutional limits. By voting Libertarian, this juggernaut of taxing, spending, and regulation can finally be stopped.
In the November 2012 election, South Carolina LP candidate Jeremy Walters won 47 percent of the vote in his race for a state House seat, running on a platform of ending the state income tax. Near-victories like this demonstrate how much difference the Libertarian Party can make if everybody who identifies with libertarian ideas actually votes Libertarian.
Join the Libertarian Party today, and find out what you can do to help cut taxes.
Bringing in a new tax is a bad idea, IMO.
Libertarians of course oppose taxation on principle – it is an involuntary alienation of property from the owner to the government.
I own a retail store that is required to pay sales tax (which I collect from the customer, but the requirement is to pay, not to collect). If an online seller is able to sell without collecting the tax, it gives them an advantage over those of us who serve the public in retail establishments.
There was only an indirect mention of this. The lobbying for a requirement that internet sellers pay sales tax was not an attempt to hamper the competition, but to make a more level playing field.
If no retailer were required to pay sales tax, that would be a level playing field, but this release does not advocate ending all sales taxes – it only denounces others for not advocating ending all sales taxes.
I certainly support ending the sales tax, but ending the income tax is more important. The income tax is more intrusive, and imposes a bigger burden on business, workers, and consumers than a sales tax ever will.
I agree in principle with the release, but I am offended by the rhetoric, as one who has to compete for customers with noted Pentagon and CIA supplier Amazon.com
They might sneak it in through conference? Dunno. Maybe they’re just testing the waters to implement it next year or some other time in the near future.
Yes.
Yes, this vote took place, HOWEVER, it was more a symbolic vote than a vote on anything that will become law (this year).
The vote was on an amendment to the Senate’s version of the budget – which is much different than the House version of the budget. The House version does not include this amendment, nor has the House voted on the Marketplace Fairness Act as a stand-alone bill.
Is this a horrible bill? YES, I’m not saying it isn’t. My point is that while it did get voted on, it was voted on as an amendment to a bill that will not become law.
U.S. Pirate Party, eh? Are they one of those groups that believes music and movies should be free?
Good job LP.
Also copyright laws are bullshit. I would like the LP to take a more hard-line stance akin to the U.S. Pirate Party, which supports the “reform of intellectual property laws to reflect open source and free culture values, government transparency, protection of privacy and civil liberties, rolling back corporate personhood and corporate welfare, evidence-based policy, and egalitarianism and meritocracy based on the hacker ethic.”