New DSLR lenses from Nikon

On Thu, 11 Feb 2010 11:56:07 -0500, "Peter"
wrote:

"tony cooper" wrote in message
.. .


What you are referring to is not the rate of tax involved, but the
evasion of tax. If you have a boat in Florida (that is kept/used here
permanently), and don't register that boat in Florida, you are evading
tax.


I was referring to the difficulty of enforcement.
Similarly, if you purchase a camera on the net and don't pay the sales/use
tax on the transaction you may very well be comitting criminal tax evasion.

And I have. I'd say that 99% of the people who purchase items on the
internet are guilty of evading sales tax if they live in a state that
imposes sales tax.

Criminal, though? I don't know. If caught, you might be required to
pay the tax, interest, and a fine...but I doubt if criminal charges
would be brought.

You are more likely to be busted by the Marine Patrol than you are the
tax authorities. Also, you are likely to reported by the marina
management.

Don't know about marinas in your neck of hte woods, but here, the private
ones did little or no reporting, as it waas not in their interest to do such
reporting.

If you owned a marina, would you want your customers harassed by state
officials looking for violators? If you were a state official,
though, a word to the marina owner to either report violations or be
subject to repeated visits could make it to your interest to
self-report.

As to the marine patrol, it depends on the use and registration
of the vessel. Why would not e Coast Guard registration be sufficient as a
vessel used n interstate commerce.
For purposes of this discussion I am referring only to ordinary pleasure
craft. There is a wholly different set of rules for commercial boats.

The "marine patrol" in Florida is the Florida Fish and Wildlife
Commission. They inspect private watercraft for safety regulation
compliance, licenses, violations of fishing laws, boating operation,
and boating in restricted zones

Any private boater in Florida can expect to be stopped by the marine
patrol at some time if even for a safety inspection.

If you are using your boat in Florida while visiting Florida, you can
do so for 90 days without registering it. Longer than that, you must
register it.

Suppose I take weekly trips to Bimini and stay there for a few days. Do I
have an obligation to pay the use tax?

What's Bimini have to do with it? Florida hasn't annexed Bimini.
What pertains is where you dock your boat between trips and where you
have your primary residence. Where you go when you are on the water
is irrelevant in this case.

--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida

Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:
It's considered a regressive tax because poor people pay VAT at the same
rate as rich people, but that's not really true. They pay the same rate,
but rich people pay much more of it because they are able to afford more
items that are not excempt.

Smirk. Orwellian logic at its best.

--
Ray Fischer

Pete Stavrakoglou wrote:
"Peter" wrote in message
"Bill Graham" wrote in message
Nutcase or not, if she does nothing but stop those presses from printing
money, I'll vote for her.......

You are even more scary than I thought.

I'll take her over the current mistake in the White House in a heartbeat.

So, when Bush puts the country into the worst recession since the
depression, runs up trillions of dollars of debt, and kills hundreds
of thousands of people in multiple wars that's god, but trying to get
the country out of the mess while not creating a depression is bad.

No wonder you people are called rightards.

--
Ray Fischer

C J Campbell wrote:
On 2010-02-09 14:12:21 -0800, Jürgen Exner said:

C J Campbell wrote:
Either that or their own tax-hungry governments think they are. America
has no VAT.

1: Canada does have VAT, it is called "Goods and Services Tax". Don't
know about other countries in America.
2: I am quite certain I prefer a flat simple straightforward VAT over
the impenetrable jungle of local, state, county and other sales taxes
that are slapped on in the US and sometimes vary just across the street.
[...]
If you like this oppressive, extremely regressive tax, fine with me.

???
You see me mystified and scratching my head.

How is a system that charges exactly the same percentage from
everyone[*] regressive, or even worse "extremely regressive", in
absolute terms?
And how is it more regressive in relative terms (if that's what you
meant) than sales tax where rich cities, which are rich because rich
people are living there, don't leverage sales tax while poor cities have
no other choice?

*: In reality there are typically 3 or 4 different levels of VAT, none
or reduced for basic needs like e.g. food, standard, and high for luxury
items, thus actually making it a rather progressive tax because
low-income people are unlikely to buy large amounts of the high-taxed
luxury items.

jue

"tony cooper" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 11 Feb 2010 12:07:11 -0500, "Peter"
wrote:

"tony cooper" wrote in message
. ..
On Thu, 11 Feb 2010 11:03:46 -0500, "Peter"
wrote:

"Pete Stavrakoglou" wrote in message
...

A New York State resident is required to pay the difference in sales
tax
to New York for any item purchased out-of-state. If I buy a camera
from
a
reseller in another state online, they do not charge me the sales tax.
I
am required by law to pay New York the difference.

You are required to make such a declaraton on your New York Income tax
return. BTW some retailers such as Amazon, do collect the NY sales tax.

The general rule is if the seller has a presence (store, outlet,
office) in the state, they must charge sales tax, where applicable, to
sales made to residents of that state.

Ritz Camera gets around that by having their stores in Florida owned
by one corporation and their online sales entity owned by a different
corporation.



AFAIK Amazon has no presence in NY.

I know. I said "generally" because the usual situation where sales
tax is collected by the seller is when the seller does have presence.
The tax authorities in the states would like to see the exclusion of
the requirement of presence, and are therefore pressing for *any*
sales being delivered to their state subject to sales tax. They want
the Ritz-type of evasion of tax collection eliminated as well as
non-evasive tactics where the seller clearly has no presence.

This type of avoidance of responsibility by Ritz, is not evasion, although
it may be assisting its customers to commit tax evasion. That being said, in
certain areas that issue has somewhat been solved in the income tax area
through use of the Federal related party transaction rules. In the foreign
tax area we have subpart F in the Internal Revenue code. California has the
unified entity concept. That concept has not been applied in the area of
sales tax. I doubt that without a change in the Interstate Commerce Clause,
that the concept could be applied.


Businesses will fight this because it would require them to file in
every state where something they sell has been purchased. That's a
massive increase in paperwork for them. As the former owner (now
retired) of a business that sold to customers in other states, I can
personally attest that this would be a major PITA for the business.
Each state with a sales tax has a different reporting system, a
different set of sales-tax-exempt products, and a different rule for
sales-tax-exempt customers.



I think that any requirement by one state attempting a business with no
connection with that state, other than shipments into that state, would be a
violation of the Instate Commerce Clause, absent some reciprocal agreement
between the different states. Any interstate compact must provide for a
uniform reporting system. The record keeping requirements and exemption
issues would be a definite PITA.

--
Peter

"tony cooper" wrote in message
...

And I have. I'd say that 99% of the people who purchase items on the
internet are guilty of evading sales tax if they live in a state that
imposes sales tax.

Criminal, though? I don't know. If caught, you might be required to
pay the tax, interest, and a fine...but I doubt if criminal charges
would be brought.


Don't know the statistics. However, that is why the question is being asked
on our income tax returns. Making a knowingly false statement on an income
tax return is a crime. As to enforcement, that sometimes depends on what
else is on the return.


--
Peter

"tony cooper" wrote in message
...

If you owned a marina, would you want your customers harassed by state
officials looking for violators? If you were a state official,
though, a word to the marina owner to either report violations or be
subject to repeated visits could make it to your interest to
self-report.

Here, the Tax Department harassed the marinas and collected information
about vessels docked that did not have NY registration.


As to the marine patrol, it depends on the use and registration
of the vessel. Why would not e Coast Guard registration be sufficient as a
vessel used n interstate commerce.
For purposes of this discussion I am referring only to ordinary pleasure
craft. There is a wholly different set of rules for commercial boats.

The "marine patrol" in Florida is the Florida Fish and Wildlife
Commission. They inspect private watercraft for safety regulation
compliance, licenses, violations of fishing laws, boating operation,
and boating in restricted zones

Any private boater in Florida can expect to be stopped by the marine
patrol at some time if even for a safety inspection.

Same thing here. Any vessel can be stopped by any one of several enforcement
organizations.


If you are using your boat in Florida while visiting Florida, you can
do so for 90 days without registering it. Longer than that, you must
register it.

Suppose I take weekly trips to Bimini and stay there for a few days. Do I
have an obligation to pay the use tax?

What's Bimini have to do with it? Florida hasn't annexed Bimini.
What pertains is where you dock your boat between trips and where you
have your primary residence. Where you go when you are on the water
is irrelevant in this case.


I dock my boat in Bimini for 30 days, FL for 10 days, well under the 60 day
requirement, then in Bmini for 200 days and FL for 59 days. I then come back
into FL for supplies and go back to, wherever.

BTW the real incentive for the marina to report the boats is the expectation
of getting a pass on their own sales tax violations. Yes, that does happen
and more often than most think.
Unlike criminal law, if there is any rational basis for the tax department's
determination the taxpayer now has the burden of proving the department
wrong. This is a very difficult burden.


--
Peter

"Savageduck" schreef in bericht
news:2010021109404619336-savageduck1@REMOVESPAMmecom...
On 2010-02-11 09:00:34 -0800, C J Campbell
said:

On 2010-02-11 05:57:43 -0800, "whisky-dave"
said:


"C J Campbell" wrote in
message
news:2010020913044675249-christophercampbellremovethis@hotmailcom...
On 2010-02-09 11:36:55 -0800, Alfred Molon
said:

In article ,
says...
Who set the Euro pricing??? With the USD at 61% of the UKP that is
just
crazy.

Japanese and Americans seem to think that Europeans are stupid.

Either that or their own tax-hungry governments think they are. America
has no VAT.

So what are these taxes that USains have to pay ?

The US has method of its own for milking the stupid. Why have a VAT, too?

The problem in the US is sales tax is a State tax, and in some cases has
County and/or city enhancements. If the Federal government should impose a
VAT as it is implemented in the EU or UK, there would have to be major
rewrites of every State tax code.

Bringing a VAT into the mix, could well have the product sitting on the
store shelf tagged with a Federal VAT, and a State sales tax added at
checkout. Replacing State sales tax with a Federal VAT, would entail
building another bureaucracy for assessing, collecting and distributing
those revenues.

...and since VAT is a "value added tax" an imported item arriving a port
of entry would have the taxed "added value" of the freight costs to move
it from port of entry to point of distribution or sale. That would also
apply to the cost of transport on domestic products. That could be
considerable for some landlocked states. That is unless transport is given
a VAT exemption

--
Regards,

Savageduck


Just for your information: the EU does NOT impose VAT, that is the reserved
right of each member country (until now that is...).
However, there are some EU-regulations regarding VAT, but, as far as I know,
there are no 2 EU member countries that have the same VAT regulations.
There can be several tariffs, over here we have 0% (e.g. medical
products/services); 6% (essentials, e.g. food); and 19% (luxury products).
Only 10 km's from my place, in another counRty (we don't have counties
US-style), you have 0%, 6%, 12% and 21%. Denmark and Sweden even have 25%.
(Same as Norway, but that is not a EU-member.)
And we have about 30 different countries... take your pick...
And, be advised, you will be milked dry: 40 years ago, when VAT was
introduced, over here we had only 4% and 12%.
Funny thing is, when (as a customer/end-user!) you buy a product in any
EU-country, you can freely bring it to any other EU-country without having
to pay extra VAT (or, for that matter, get any VAT-return), that was the
basis of establishing the EU: free traffic of goods and services.
Mind you we have plenty of other taxes and excises, people with an average
income pay roughly 65% of their gross income to all kinds of different
taxes.

....and yes, we do complain ;-)

BTW (pun: BTW is Dutch for VAT), OK, BTW: shall we go back tot talking
photo/equipment?

L.

"Peter" wrote in message
...
"tony cooper" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 11 Feb 2010 11:03:46 -0500, "Peter"
wrote:

"Pete Stavrakoglou" wrote in message
...

A New York State resident is required to pay the difference in sales
tax
to New York for any item purchased out-of-state. If I buy a camera
from a
reseller in another state online, they do not charge me the sales tax.
I
am required by law to pay New York the difference.

You are required to make such a declaraton on your New York Income tax
return. BTW some retailers such as Amazon, do collect the NY sales tax.

The general rule is if the seller has a presence (store, outlet,
office) in the state, they must charge sales tax, where applicable, to
sales made to residents of that state.

Ritz Camera gets around that by having their stores in Florida owned
by one corporation and their online sales entity owned by a different
corporation.



AFAIK Amazon has no presence in NY. Our tax authorities are proactively
attempting to encourage online retailers to collect and turn over the
sales tax. For several years there have been ongoing negotiations between
the various States for an inter-state compact, regarding collection of
sales taxes. There are lots of constitutional and business difficulties
with such a compact. (most states have lots of problems being paid sales
taxes collected by their resident businesses.) Though some inter-state
compacts have been working well, at least in the income tax area.

New York's logic was that if a New York State resident while in New York
could "click-through" to a website, then that is akin to having a physical
prescence (or some logic of the sort). This would apply to any out-of-state
reseller but thus far, NY is going after the big ones like Amazon and
Buy.com.

"Peter" wrote in message
...
"Pete Stavrakoglou" wrote in message
...
"Peter" wrote in message
...
"Bill Graham" wrote in message
...

"C J Campbell" wrote in
message
news:2010020916350416807-christophercampbellremovethis@hotmailcom...
On 2010-02-09 14:48:32 -0800, Bruce said:

On Tue, 9 Feb 2010 14:36:11 -0800, C J Campbell
wrote:

Both parties are obsessed with populist "blame the bankers for the
economy" rhetoric. Which means they are likely to do nothing. Which
is
just the way I like it. Unfortunately, while neither party has said
"Jewish bankers," the message is just as clear. The nation is being
run
by fascists who dominate both sides of the aisle.


You should thank God for Sarah Palin, then.

Palin to the rescue, 2012. ;-)

I think not. She will be a fine news commentator -- meaning she will
be good for Fox's ratings. But she is regarded as poison by both
parties. Her image would need considerable rehabilitation to make her
a viable candidate for pretty much anything.

I am sure that there are politicians who have a clear sense of
responsibility to the Republic and who are not hostage to the
extremists of their party. I am also sure that no one like that has a
snowball's chance in Hades of getting elected president. Apparently,
being a certifiable nutcase is prerequisite for the job. Okay. So
Palin to the rescue, then.

Nutcase or not, if she does nothing but stop those presses from
printing money, I'll vote for her.......


You are even more scary than I thought.

--
Peter

I'll take her over the current mistake in the White House in a heartbeat.


Even though she has no ability to think. Yes, she is an excellent public
speaker. Excellent public speakers have caused the deaths of millions.

--
Peter

I don't see much evidence that Obama is much of a thinker. Take away the
teleprompter and he's lost for words.