[chrischen]

People paid for their service too. So they are making money directly off of users’ illegal actions like how

1) airbnb users illegally converting rooms into short term rentals 2) amazon helping people avoid sales tax 3) uber lyft allowing drivers to drive taxis without a taxi license

[jdmichal]

As for point (2), technically it's on the consumer to pay use tax on an item that they did not pay sales tax on. Amazon was operating in a perfectly normal manner; it's just that interstate sales like that weren't common before the internet. The laws are still trying to catch up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_tax

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streamlined_Sales_Tax_Project

[nitrogen]

I thought mail-order catalogs were fairly common. How did they handle tax?

[btilly]

The exact same way that internet companies do. :-)

As much as states don't want you to think about it, the Constitutional issues were settled back in the 1800s. If you do business with a company from another state, that is interstate commerce and only the Federal government can make laws about it. So, very importantly, your state government can't.

However if the company and customer exist in the state, then state law can apply to both. So companies have to track and apply state sales tax only for states where they have a physical presence.

After that it is all down to what it means for a company to exist in a state. For example if Amazon owns a subsidiary named A2Z Development which is doing software development in California for Amazon, does Amazon have a presence in California?

[8ytecoder]

>> After that it is all down to what it means for a company to exist in a state. For example if Amazon owns a subsidiary named A2Z Development which is doing software development in California for Amazon, does Amazon have a presence in California?

It's called having a nexus - even a single employee counts as having nexus. I'm not sure about subsidiaries though.

[btilly]

Several states have passed laws saying that affiliates in a state are enough to establish a nexus. Precedent varies by court about whether this is so. For example New York said yes, Illinois said no. No case has yet found its way to the Supreme Court.

I do not know of precedent involving subsidiaries. But the legal case for it would seem to me to be stronger than it is for affiliates. And even if the courts did rule otherwise, well, if the state really wants to go after a local subsidiary, surely they can make their life hard in SOME way...

According to California law AB153, affiliates count as a nexus. This did not get legislated. Amazon responded by cutting off all California affiliates after that was passed. Then the issue of subsidiaries was raised. After some negotiation, California did not go after subsidiaries like A2Z Development, and Amazon started collecting California state tax in 2012.

[vkou]

> As much as states don't want you to think about it, the Constitutional issues were settled back in the 1800s. If you do business with a company from another state, that is interstate commerce and only the Federal government can make laws about it. So, very importantly, your state government can't.

That's because this leads to incredibly absurd conclusions, such as Amazon 'not doing business' in a state, despite selling billions of dollars worth of merchandise to it. I don't understand how people can claim this to be the case, with a straight face.

In fact, I would daresay say that Amazon.com selling things to residents of Montana means that it has a presence in the state, for the purposes of that transaction, moreso then it does for having an Montana office that employs 8 people who code for AWS.

[kevin_thibedeau]

Sears Roebuck did the exact same thing when they were shipping everything by rail out of Chicago. Nobody out of state paid sales tax then either.

[chrischen]

My point is that it's on the consumers to follow the laws, but in each of those cases the companies are implicitly benefitting from mass "illegal" activity from users.

[briandear]

“Illegally converting rooms..”

You mean two consenting adults agreeing for a price to exchange a service such as a room or a ride in a car?

Completely different than stealing the production of a movie company and giving it to others for free. Hotels don’t own Airbnb rooms and taxi companies don’t own Uber cars which means they only derive their right to a oligopoly via regulation— regulation that historically is as the result of mobsters or other similarly situated constituencies attempting to create artificial barriers to entry.

Why do people like you seem to love the nanny state? Why do taxis need “regulating?” Why can’t grown ups decide who they want to ride with? Why can’t owners of properties rent to people? How is renting to someone any different than having non-paid houseguests? On a practical level, it isn’t. If the concern is increased traffic in residential areas, then why aren’t houseguests regulated? If the concern is security, then why aren’t residents and owners required to undergo background screenings as a condition of buying property?

America is supposed to be about freedom, but it more closely resembles some totalitarian regulatory wet dream.

Taxi regulation is just a money grab. Health and safety is a ridiculous argument. Me driving my neighbor to the doctor is zero different than me driving a stranger to the post office.

“Hacker News..” LOL. Seems instead more like a bunch of old spinsters lamenting the failure of the temperance movement whilst clutching pearls over those youngsters playing jazz records and dancing the Lindy Hop without appropriate chaperones.

Dammit, we should be encouraging the pushing of limits, of testing boundaries and kicking dents in the status quo. We damned sure ought not be actually defending the status quo. Disrupt!

[megous]

> Completely different than stealing the production of a movie company and giving it to others for free.

Do you mean two consenting adults copying some files?

If you don't mind ignoring laws around taxis, etc. why a special case for copyright?