Pundits, be they pros like David Brooks, or amateurs like yours truly, are in the business of making predictions. It is therefore only fair that they should be held strictly accountable for those predictions. I’m no exception, particularly when I’m proven right yet again. A mere month and a half ago I wrote this in light of Amazon’s announcement that it would build a distribution center in, and start paying sales taxes to, the state of Connecticut:
We learn from this morning’s Day that Amazon will be building a “customer fulfillment center” here in the Nutmeg State, and will have to begin collecting sales taxes on in state purchases in November. Amazon, of course, has been in the forefront of the lobbying effort to keep states from collecting sales taxes on internet sales. Let’s look into the future, as Amazon approaches its goal of same day delivery throughout most of the nation.
That will require customer fulfillment centers in almost every state, subjecting Amazon to state sales taxes everywhere. Look for Amazon to have a change of heart, and support efforts to require its far smaller competitors to remit sales taxes to all states, rather than only to those states in which they have a physical presence. This is actually good public policy, but at that point it will be used by Amazon as a cudgel to destroy its smaller competitors.
(via CT Blue › A prognostication)
Today, we learn this about a Congressional proposal to require internet retailers to collect sales taxes for all states to which they ship:
Guess who else supports the bill? The one company whose business would seem to be more deeply affected than any other if such a bill were to become law — and the one company at which this legislation would appear to be directly aimed: Amazon.
(via Congress Backs Borderless Internet Sales Tax (And So Does Amazon) | Wired Business | Wired.com)
Okay, I admit this was a no-brainer, but if I’m not mistaken, it still puts me one up on Brooks for the year.
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