The Minnesota Internet Tax Freedom Act

The Minnesota Internet Tax Freedom Act

No online gambling operations are recognized under The Minnesota Internet Tax Freedom Act.
Pass legislation to define online sales and online commerce as transactions using patented shopping cart technology that, where taxable, is subject to Use tax only, not Sales tax. Define online shopper and online seller as entities involved in online sales.
Enact a single resolution or rule in the Revenue Department that says no seller shall collect online sales tax from an online shopper and that all online sales are subject to Use tax to be paid by online shopper only as a Use tax. This is the opposite of California law, where California businesses collect sales tax from everyone buying online from California businesses. This aspect of California burdens small-business.
Enact a single resolution or rule that raises the Use tax exemption from $770 to $250,000.
Identify in MN code 297A the individual online shopper as an entity-exemption up to $250,000.
Businesses registered to pay Sales tax will continue to submit sales tax in the conventional manner. There will be no credit issued by the Revenue department of any kind. Sales or Use tax collected online will no longer be collected.
Our elderly can stay here and the grown children can be here with them, because the children can earn a livelihood in the greatest state in the nation – Minnesota.

Need
I oppose the Streamlined Sales Tax (SST),Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement (SSUTA), any Sales or Use Tax code upgrading, and all such streamline efforts and attention to government revenue streams that is supported by Democratic revenue stream hunters(Independent gubernatorial candidate Tom Horner, local pundit Andy Driscoll), government tax professionals, democrat social engineers ( the SSUTA governing board), and the National Retail Federation because much of the streamlining efforts violate the spirit if not the letter of the 1998 federal Internet Tax Freedom Act, which currently protects online commerce by forbidding all government from imposing multiple discriminatory taxes on online commerce.
A Minnesota Internet Tax Freedom Act would clarify what online commerce is and isn't.
Under a Minnesota Internet Tax Freedom Act, all e-commerce such as eBay selling and buying, is online commerce, qualifying for a sales and Use tax exemption for the Minnesota online buyer and seller.
A Minnesota Internet Tax Freedom Act will secure an optimistic outlook and competitive edge for all Minnesotans to enjoy.
Our elderly can stay here and the grown children can be here with them, because the children can earn a livelihood in the greatest state in the nation – Minnesota.
The federal Internet Tax Freedom Act expires in 2014 and until then online commerce can't be taxed.
California's very poor online sales tax freedom act:
http://www.techlawjournal.com/internet/80824citfa.htm

There is a big difference between the genuine federal Tax Freedom Act, which prohibits multiple and discriminatory tax on online commerce and internet access, and the limited narrow California bill.
Ann Lenczewski's redefinition of telecommunication service to potentially include online commerce
https://www.revisor.mn.gov/laws/?id=154&doctype=Chapter&type=0&year=2008

https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/?id=297A.669&year=2010&keyword_type=all&keyword=Telecommunications+services

Helpful starter article:
http://www.jongingerich.com/?p=23

National Retail Federation
http://www.nrf.com/modules.php?name=Pages&sp_id=1389

On July 1, 2010, Representative Bill Delahunt, D-Mass., introduced H.R. 5660, the “Main Street Fairness Act,” 24 states ... conformance with the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement
Is your state affected?
http://www.streamlinedsalestax.org/index.php?page=state-info

http://www.streamlinedsalestax.org/index.php?page=minnesota

The state of Minnesota became a full member of Streamlined Sales Tax on October 1st, 2005
http://www.streamlinedsalestax.org/uploads/downloads/State%20Compliance/Minnesota/2010/Minnesota%20Taxability%20Matrix%202010.pdf

http://www.streamlinedsalestax.org/uploads/downloads/State%20Compliance/Minnesota/2010/Minnesosta%20Letter.pdf

Daniel Salomone, MN commissioner of Revenue petition to join
http://www.streamlinedsalestax.org/uploads/downloads/State%20Compliance/Minnesota/MN%20Petition.pdf

http://www.streamlinedsalestax.org/index.php?page=state-info

I have no financial interest in Tax Free e-Commerce that all Minnesotans cannot easily share in today.
I have no financial interest in any retailer, online or brick & Mortar, Soverain, Amazon, or any entity involved in the ongoing software patent litigation. I have no financial interest in tax-free e-Commerce except as an eBay hobbyist seller. Minnesota e-Commerce is a entrepreneurial activity that the Internet Tax Freedom Act encourages and holds up as an inspiration for others to further our culture.
It's clear Soverain is consistently collecting $2.5 million from anyone it chooses to "hit up" for infringement compensation. Because of this fact, government should not further burden e-retailers who must pay so much for the use of the shopping cart model in daily business.
Further, government should exclude related technologies that are even more broad, such as the hyperlink technology for which a patent has been issued.

Liberals, like Soverain, see e-retailers like Newegg as plump prey to be shaken down. Please elect me to thwart the liberals' worst instincts and preserve internet commerce as tax free with the Minnesota Internet Tax Freedom Act.

Amazon 1 Click wins
http://yro.slashdot.org/submission/724171/Amazon-Gives-Thanks-for-Joke-of-a-Patent-System

nice summary of who owns the shopping cart tech:
http://www.internetretailer.com/commentary/2010/07/30/mother-all-patent-battles

Cost
The Minnesota Internet Tax Freedom Act, applied to businesses as well as online shoppers, would cost $133.675 million, or 2.8% of all 2008 sales and use tax remittance ($4.674 billion business sales and use plus $2 million individual Use remittance).
The Act would require a cut to the regular cost-of-living biennium adjustment of just .4%. That's less than 1/2 of 1%.
http://taxes.state.mn.us/legal_policy/pages/research_reports_sales_use_2008_statistics.aspx

How many of the 160,000 registered businesses remit more than $17,500 in sales and use tax?
It's probably between 1,500 and 5,000. let's say it's 3,500. These 3,500 businesses account for perhaps 85% of all sales and use tax remittance.
The rest of the businesses average a very small remittance - let's just say $450.
So the cost of the small businesses' sales tax exemption is $70.425 million (450 x (160000-3500)). Plus the cost of the estimated 3500 big businesses' exemptions (utilities, phone companies, energy companies and so forth): 3500 x $17500 = $61.25 million. $61.25 million plus $70.425 million = $131.675 million.
Add in the almost negligible $2 million from voluntary paper-filed Use tax remittances from unregistered individuals and you get a total cost of $133.675 million. That's $133.675 million to transform Minnesota overnight into a national small business retail tax haven with the Minnesota Internet Tax Freedom Act.
$133.675 million in tax breaks to the hardest working people in Minnesota, many of whom are caring for an elderly relative or two (while easing the housing and personnel burden of the Human Services commissioner) and would not otherwise be able to if they did not have the means to earn a competitive livelihood online.