Word: taxingly
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...shopping across state lines is about to explode, thanks to the Internet. If you haven't yet bought anything online, you ought to and you probably will soon. It's fun and wonderfully efficient. The sales-tax loophole is gravy...
...lock in this advantage, Congress is considering something called the Internet Tax Freedom Act. The bill is sponsored by Democratic Senator Ron Wyden and Republican Congressman Chris Cox and backed by President Bill Clinton. Despite its characteristically cyber-self-righteous title, the bill would require only tax neutrality between the Internet and other channels of commerce. And it would only impose a multiyear "moratorium" (the length differs in the House and Senate versions) to prevent "chaos" while the issue is studied by a presidential commission...
...practical effect would be to give Internet commerce several years of exemption from the sales tax whenever other mail-order methods are effectively exempt. By requiring neutrality between Internet commerce and other mail order, the bill effectively requires discrimination that favors Internet commerce over shopping at actual stores...
Moreover, one of the co-sponsors, Wyden, makes no bones about his hope that the ultimate result will be a tax-free Internet, as the bill's name suggests...
...like to be tax free. Apart from its glamour (the same reason celebrities get good tables at fancy restaurants), why should the Internet enjoy this advantage? The usual answer is that there are 30,000 different taxing jurisdictions in the U.S., and the diffuse nature of cyberspace makes Internet commerce uniquely vulnerable to conflicting and overlapping tax claims. But the nightmare scenarios are nothing new. Ask General Motors or Federal Express if 50 states and thousands of counties and cities add up to a picnic for them. The mail-order houses used to insist, until last week, that collecting...