There are so many things to dispute in Bryan Hansel’s letter on sales tax (News-Herald, July 13) that it would take more space than this newspaper allots for letters, so I’ll focus on the most critical: is the sales tax on Internet sales fair?
Yes, it has been on the books for over 50 years without challenge, all retail sales are subject to the tax.
Does it discriminate against one business over another? No, all retail sales are subject to the tax regardless of where they are purchased, the only discrimination is that online retailers have not, until now, been asked to collect and pay the tax like all brick and mortar (B&Ms) businesses have always done.
Why should only certain online merchants like Amazon be exempt from this duty? Target, Walmart, Best Buy and others collect it as well. The policy of exempting certain merchants gives them a 7.5 percent price advantage. That is extremely unfair,withanaverageofa4percent net profit B&Ms would lose over 3 percent just by price matching.
Local merchants also pay local taxes, hire local people for staff and contribute locally in many ways. The online merchants take your money out of the state and contribute nothing locally except for the money they send back to their affiliates; add to that the $325 million dollars per year in sales lost per year to the Amazons of the marketplace.
Bryan, Amazon and I agree that the Marketplace Fairness Act will level the field, but they also say that only the federal legislation is acceptable, they don’t want the state to act in its own interest. If the state does exactly what the federal legislation allows, Amazon will take its ball and go home.
Bryan also criticizes Bakk and Dill for acting in the state’s interest, for doing exactly what we elected them to do, and overlooks the fact that it was Amazon that fired him and all the other affiliates in the state. Amazon is the boogieman here, they acted against Bryan to spite the state, and for that they don’t deserve to get our business: buy local and support your local economy.
Jerry Hiniker
Grand Marais
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