The United State Supreme Court ruled recently ruled that states can now collect online sales tax from out-of-state vendors, according to a press release from Richard Hilderbrand (R-Galena).
“Before the Kansas Legislature moves forward, we must look closely to see how this will impact hardworking Kansans,” Hilderbrand said.
“The Supreme Court opinion on online sales taxes would work like this,” he said. ” Any taxing entity in the U.S; can now collect sales tax from any business that sells online to a customer that resides in their taxing jurisdiction.”
“This will put a huge burden on small businesses that currently sell online,” Hilderbrand said. “They will now have to answer to thousands of taxing entities. They will have to know what each sales tax rate is, and will also be subject to audits from those taxing entities.”
“Because this is an interstate commerce issue, it will be up to our U.S. Congress, and U.S. Senate to address this situation,” Hilderbrand said. “The state will have to decide on whether or not to start collecting taxes on out of state businesses that sell online to Kansas citizens. If the state decides to start collecting that sales tax, it will be another tax increase on Kansas citizens.”
“We cannot place another tax hike onto Kansas taxpayers for the third year in a row. An implementation of online sales tax must be coupled with a decrease in the overall sales tax rate. It is an embarrassment that Kansans pay some of the highest sales taxes in the Midwest. Our first priority should be to ease the financial burden on families by making Kansas a more affordable state,” according to the press release.”
“The sales tax rate must be lowered so Kansans can keep more of their money in their pockets instead of being forced to send more and more money to Topeka,” Hilderbrand said.
Sales taxes are high in Kansas because six billion dollars of sales tax revenue is not collected due to special sales tax exemptions granted already here in Kansas. Stop playing the game of sales tax exemptions and six billion dollars in tax revenue alone would be collected in Kansas. And the total revenue from all sources with exemptions allowed collected by the state is close to seven billion already. Stop hiding exemptions by taxing citizens in three different manners. On income and sales tax and property tax for example. Not to mention corporate income tax costs passed onto the customer in the retail cost paid.
What type of exemptions are you talking about? You mean like farmer’s sale tax exemption?
Businesses do not pay taxes it is passed on to the customer at their personal retail purchase. Businesses should not be required to pay taxes on anything that goes into their business. That would become a cost that would have to be passed on to the retail customer and increase the market price to possibly too high a price in order to compete.