Notice To State And Local Governments: Stay Away From Our Yard Sales!
March 24, 2009 8:29 AM
Homeowners have been holding yard sales and bartering goods and services for a long, long time. It's been a great way to bring in some extra money and get rid of unused stuff. Today, a lot of the yard sales and bartering are being conducted online, using outlets such as Craigslist.com and Ebay.com. This has been an especially important means of income to homeowners who are facing tough economic times and looming forclosures. California-based http://swapthing.com offers 3.4 million+ items and services for barter or swap.A looming threat to these trends are efforts by some state and local governments to require consumers to collect sales taxes on these transactions, and send them to the appropriate state and local government. This could be a real headache for consumers, because there are some 7,000 state and local taxing authorities, and each one taxes different products and services at different rates. State and local governments should either tighten their belts as many of the rest of us has had to do, and/or look to other sources of additional tax revenues besides untapped consumer Internet transactions.
