Comments for Parents Guild Blog

Comment on Amazon, how could you dump us? An open letter to Jeff Bezos by Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 18:27:00 +0000

You know, Mezasd. I agree with you. No sales tax, package arrives within a couple of days, who am I to complain? The question is, how is that fair? If you’re anti-sales-tax, why not be anti-tax for Target & Walmart?

Comment on Amazon, how could you dump us? An open letter to Jeff Bezos by Mezasd

Mezasd — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 06:24:00 +0000

You know, ive been a customer of amazon for 7 years, best thing bout it? No sales tax. If i went to buy something thru your link, and i had to pay sales tax, then i wouldnt buy it from you anyway. Amazon did the right thing. This was a power move by target, walmart, etc to eliminate the competition and gov. Brown probably took a bribe to make this happen. So your little letter needs to go to sacramento not amazon

Comment on About the Project by phone number lookup

phone number lookup — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 23:05:00 +0000

You definitely know how to bring an issue to light and make it important.

Comment on [video] Revolutionizing Education? by [video] Isaac Asimov on the Internet & Education

[video] Isaac Asimov on the Internet & Education — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 22:25:14 +0000

[...] thought leadership on education. If you haven’t already, see our previous posts here on the Khan Academy and Bill [...]

Comment on Further thoughts on Jeff Bezos vs State of CA by Michael Klein

Michael Klein — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 04:12:00 +0000

Agree completely.
I think as mentioned in the previous set of comments, the one thing you would need to do is have one set of sales tax rules for, say, internet transactions to keep smaller companies from getting buried by the hundreds of sales tax jurisdictions in the U.S. each with its own specific rules and rates.

However as internet transactions are not subject to sales tax as is, would any state object to, say, a flat 5% sales tax on all internet purchases by customers in their state? I know this gets into the whole morass of federal vs. state sovereignty issues, but on a more basic level, think it’s the most fair way to level the playing field, reign in companies getting a free ride (like Amazon) and closing a loophole that’s keeping states from getting their fair share of revenue.

Comment on Amazon, how could you dump us? An open letter to Jeff Bezos by Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 01:11:00 +0000

Makes for a more clever and attention-grabbing headline the way you have it now, though.

Comment on Amazon, how could you dump us? An open letter to Jeff Bezos by Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 22:06:00 +0000

I think your “Ain’t my job” reply (consumers job to pay sales taxes) is a bit of a dodge, personally. After all, the thrust of your argument is that Californians benefit from paying said taxes and so your decision to not donate the loss of sales tax revenue from your link revenue seems a little self-serving. In effect, “Thank you Amazon for this previous ‘sales tax’-free revenue stream but now that it’s gone, by golly, you really should willingly be putting yourself in an uncompetitive advantage by charging the consumers for them.”

You are right, taxes are not donations, they’re confiscatory. However, you are making the case that Amazon consumers should essentially “donate” them, are you not? I guess my thought is that you would stand on firmer moral ground if you would have voluntarily cancelled your Amazon affiliation or have decided to “donate” a portion of your, apparent, ill-gotten revenue just as you are expecting Californian consumers to do.

Anyway, Amazon is on record for supporting a federal solution to this problem since that is where it should and, Constitutionally, must come from, more at http://buswk.co/kwRsy6

[excerpt]
Surprisingly, Jeffrey P. Bezos, Amazon’s founder and chief executive officer, recently told Consumer Reports that he supports federal legislation that rationalizes the patchwork of 30,000 state and local sales-tax jurisdictions around the country, each with its own rules and administrative quirks.
[/excerpt]

Comment on Amazon, how could you dump us? An open letter to Jeff Bezos by Sara

Sara — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 21:46:00 +0000

hear hear.

Comment on Amazon, how could you dump us? An open letter to Jeff Bezos by Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 21:40:00 +0000

Fair point, feel free to consider it such. It may be that we’re just suffering in the crossfire. But even though Amazon may or may not have a physical nexus here in California, I believe that they are selling things to me here, in my California home, as much as in Seattle or wherever their servers might be processing my transaction. I should probably be paying sales tax. But of course, consumers only do that when the vendor asks us to.

Comment on Amazon, how could you dump us? An open letter to Jeff Bezos by Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 21:34:00 +0000

Surprisingly, we did not. Typically, it’s the consumer who pays sales tax at the point of purchase, when the vendor typically asks for it. Parents Guild is neither the vendor nor the consumer in a transaction on Amazon.com.

I don’t think of taxes as donations, I think of taxes as shared effort to offset the tragedy of the commons – i.e. if we need consumers to buy things, and vendors to sell things, then we at some point decided it was desirable to allot some %age on top of that transaction to pay for the shared services that allow consumers and vendors to buy, sell and live. (Presumably we decided it would be expedient to not rely on the spontaneous charity of 3rd parties, as desirous as they might be to use those shared services.)