The New Deal which didn’t cause the end the Great Depression, regrettably expanded the federal government massively, many of the programs actually worsened the problems they were trying to solve (e.g. The Social Security Act). Getting off the gold standard, which allows the federal government to print money out of thin air, not being backed on anything. This has caused our government to try and buy our way out of bad economic times and to print excessive amounts of money to pay off our national debt, which has done nothing but destroy our currency and hasn’t reduced our debt b/c of the amount of money needed to fund the big government we have today (whether it be for the war, or all the new government organizations created in recent times).

Well I won’t go continue my rant any further… the point being we shouldn’t expect sound economic thinking from the government, as I haven’t seen any sound economic reasoning from them in the past century.

Furthermore, saying this won’t have an impact is questionable. New York state tends to be the trend creator for other states, as they were with the no cell phone while driving law which several states adopted after new york set the precedent.

This could just further the outsourcing of businesses and thus jobs from states like New York to other states, or worse if many states in the union start adopting similar legislation.

This is something state and federal government has wanted to do for some time. A government that size of the U.S. is always trying to find ways to sustain their size, which often comes in the form of many new forms of taxation of their people.

The U.S. government has been headed for some time now down a path of destruction, whether it be threw their unsound economic reasoning, or through how Orwellian our big government (*cough* Big Brother *cough*) has become.

Amazon.com started as a small business and was better at business than their competitors. The market rewards that. If Mom and Pop can’t compete, the market removes them and everyone benefits. Mom and Pop can go do something else. That’s life. Don’t like it? Tough. A free market seeks to provide the most options at the lowest cost to the consumers, not subsides for people who can’t differentiate between being in business and playing at business.

You raise a good point there Fred that nearly all of the “big” stores out there started small and may have even been a “mom n’ pop” type of place. Now I’m curious how Amazon started out and how long it took them to become what they are today. Time to go research…

I am not looking forward to paying sales tax on Amazon, but as a small businessman I am glad for the local smaller businesses.

Seriously – WHO is worried about Amazon or other internet retailers? I mean, Amazon is a billion dollar business – why not be worried about all the mom and pop businesses that went OUT of business because of Amazon?

I’m just saying that it’s not a huge shift in tax law, just putting the burden of reporting on the retailers. While the large retailers should have no problem keeping up with the law, it’ll probably be tough on small home businesses without a middle man to take care of all the hassle.

It seems to me that online prices will often still be cheaper than those at local stores, especially since free shipping is becoming so prevalent.

I’m worried about the small businesses as well. I would have to agree that it would still be cheaper to purchase online with or without the taxation, but on some purchases the difference can be quite drastic. For example, purchasing a computer online is typically quite a bit cheaper than stores because for many states they are tax-free. That can save over a hundred dollars depending on the type of computer.

I’m just saying that it’s not a huge shift in tax law, just putting the burden of reporting on the retailers. While the large retailers should have no problem keeping up with the law, it’ll probably be tough on small home businesses without a middle man to take care of all the hassle.

It seems to me that online prices will often still be cheaper than those at local stores, especially since free shipping is becoming so prevalent.

They can force collection of sales taxes if the delivery and shipping address are within the state of New York which…will increase the cost for New York businesses and consumers leading to fewer in-state sales. The higher the cost of business overhead, the higher the disincentive to conduct business.

It actually makes me wonder whether this could lead to businesses moving out of the state to avoid the extra burden.

This won’t go anywhere. New York doesn’t have taxation authority on entities which don’t have a physical presence inside the state and they can restrict inter-state trade without dissolving the Union. They can force collection of sales taxes if the delivery and shipping address are within the state of New York which…will increase the cost for New York businesses and consumers leading to fewer in-state sales. The higher the cost of business overhead, the higher the disincentive to conduct business.