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I read a book by Stacey Mitchell called Big Box Swindle, and it re-framed my entire perspective on retailing as I have known it over my 39 (!) years. That book calls attention to the stupid policies of state and local governments that grant tax incentives and other goodies to lure the likes of WalMart and many other big box retailers to towns in the hopes of adding jobs and revenues to the their towns. She's expert in demonstrating the fallacy of the thinking, and relentlessly points to case after case where the net result, after all the mom and pops close up as a result of the scorched earth positions of said big boxes, is devastatingly negative on the community. Yet these governmental tactics continue unabated.

This ties into the question at hand via the government policy handle. Our states are strapped for cash, yet they have refused to tap this vein. The brick and mortars pay real estate taxes and employ millions. We support little leagues and hire local CPAs. We spend money at other locally owned businesses, keeping our money circulating and helping our local economies. Despite that obvious benefit to the health of the state economies, they grant advantages to those who pay no such tax and by and large have only a negative impact on the state's economic fortunes by taking the revenues out AND failing to collect taxes. As with the incentives to the Wall Street companies while providing none to the Main Street stores, our governmental policies consciously stack the deck in favor of the big, and they seem shockingly ignorant of the repercussions. You know, like "Huh! I never thought of it like that...".

What truly shocks me, though, is that there is no massive outcry. No constant drum beat of indignation, and as a matter of fact, no class action lawsuits. If they can do without the revenues derived from catalogs and internet, then surely they can do without the revenues derived from in-state merchants. Does it not strike anyone else as patently illegal? If not illegal, OK, surely immoral.

Read Ms. Mitchell's book. Subscribe to her newsletter. She's smart and right, and she makes one think of a myriad of other aspects of deliberate unfairness. I hate WalMart and everything they stand for, but when my own tax dollars get used to help them try to put me and my kind out of business, I wax annoyed. When internet companies get a free ride in my state on top of that, I see red.

Surely we're not that stupid, and yet, here we are...shocking fact after shocking fact, and it's all "just the way things are". In the PBS Show "SCHMATTA: Rags to Riches", it is pointed out that in 1965, 95% of all apparel BOUGHT in the US was MADE in the US, whereas in 2005, that number is 5%. That shift could have been drastically reduced, but for policies that deliberately destroyed that industry. Governmental policies, just like internet taxation. It ought to be punishable, the indifference and failure to comprehend. These are not games, and the stakes are mind boggling. In many cases, it is too late, although our newly urgent "Made in the USA" drives are encouraging as anything could be. But with taxation issues as noted, I for one wish we could form a bloc that laid the nonsensical "let them eat cake" policies to waste. Enough, already. I'm no bomb thrower, but I am beyond exasperation.

Comprehension and compassion would be welcome. Commitment to knock off the favoritism for the PACs would be better.

Thanks for the opportunity to modestly opine, Harry.

Peter Rose

I think "excited"or optimistic would be the more appropriate reaction.

1). This would help each state tremendously with their dwindling tax revenues as unemployment and profits (and associated tax revenue) stagnate.
2) this would level the playing field somewhat for brick and mortar stores vs their Internet counterparts.
3) it makes no sense that a tie purchased from a store in NYS is taxed...but the same tie purchased via a catalog or online from a company having no "nexus" in NYS is not.
4) the irony is that in most states, every taxpayer answers a question on their personal state tax returns asking something to the effect of "have you made any out-of-state purchases for which tou need to report/pay a use tax?"

Most taxpayers answer this incorrectly...most, I think, unwittingly.

Taxing all consumer purchases makes sense.

Vinnie Rua-founder, Christopher'sCustom, former retailer and CPA