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Over the last few weeks I have been writing about politics way to much (here and on other websites) and I actually even went up to the Capitol and testified against a bill (1193) that is currently pushed through the Senate and the House. While doing additional research I ran into the blog of a Colorado State Senator (Senator Brophy) writing about what is going on. It seems like the Senate and House leadership is trying to turn Colorado into Big Brother. They want to spy on each and every online purchase we are going to make. Read for yourself:
http://senatorbrophy.blogspot.com/2010/02/taxing-internet.html (click here for a screenshot)
Quote:
Internet retailers will have to tell their customers every time something is bought online that the customer owes “use” tax to the State of Colorado. Use tax, little did I know, is owed on any item purchased for which sales tax is applicable but not collected. No, really. Failure to make the notification results in a $5 fine per occurrence.
Internet retailers will have to notify customers once a year by mail what their annual purchases were and that use tax was owed on those purchases.
And the pièce de résistance is that the Internet retailer will have to submit to the State of Colorado a list of everything that you bought online! YIKES!
While the use tax issue is not nice for me as a consumer, I think this requirement already existed (meaning, that consumer would have to voluntarily pay sales tax to the State). I doubt there was a way to enforce it and I doubt the State actually had a system in place for consumers to pay sales tax (duh).
However, I do have a problem with what this seems to turn into. Requiring merchants to submit detailed information about what I bought?! What’s the next step? Profiling? Do I get in trouble for buying certain books that deal with issues somebody up there does not like? Who gets to see the information and how long will it be stored? There is a whole bunch more that comes to mind.
Bill HB1193 also has other issues as it will destroy jobs in Colorado if approved, but that is another story.
I think our State Senators and House Representatives need to hear from us - especially the members of the democratic party as they have the majority in the House, the Senate, and the Governor is democratic as well (and eager to sign these bills). They need to know that this is going too far.
I personally hope this will be my last political article on this website for a long time. I do apologize as this is not what this website is for, but the CCU situation and this I think requires us citizens to respond. Please write not only to the members of the CO Senate and the House that represent Highlands Ranch, but to everyone.
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