The New York Times today publishes an editorial calling on Congress to "require Internet companies, mail-order houses and the like to collect taxes at states' base sales tax rates. Using these 50 rates (and others for American territories and the District of Columbia) cuts out the complexity of city and county surcharges and hardly seems excessive."
The editorial says, "This action would eliminate a disturbing imbalance. As the wealthier and better educated shop more on the Internet, the people who use brick-and- mortar stores -- disproportionately the poor, the less educated, minority consumers and rural populations -- bear bigger shares of states' tax burdens."
The Times describes this "disturbing imbalance" as "regressive" and a "digital divide."
Well, those reading this editorial on the New York Times web site are just one click away from something called the New York Times Company Store, which offers New York Times books, videos, photographs, a T-shirt, a desk diary, and various other products. The site asks New York and Vermont residents to add the sales tax, but for residents of the other 48 states, the purchase is tax-free. If it's as simple as the Times editorialists claim to collect sales tax using 50 different rates, why doesn't the Times Company itself do it in its own e-commerce operations?
And speaking of a "disturbing imbalance," it turns out that reading the New York Times on its Web site is free. Those who get the paper edition -- no doubt those non-Internet users the Times claims are "disproportionately the poor, the less educated, minority consumers and rural populations" -- have to pay for it. If the Times is so disturbed by the regressive "digital divide," why is it subsidizing computer users by providing them the paper 's contents free of charge?
The Times's editorial argument in favor of taxes on the Internet is so weak that apparently it can't sway even the newspaper's own corporate executives.