Well said.

Everyone I know pays.

Everyone I know contributes.

It’s the rising cost.

Step one: push too far.
Step two: people get annoyed.
Step three: ignore, not important. Get more taxes.
Step four: revolt since nothing changes year after year.

Entitled in govt=govt of unrealistic expectations, poor problem solving and short term band-aid attempts.

No where to move to. Anyways, back to my pins! They just cost me in time now!

You're speaking to the choir as I held an elected position for 8 years, albeit at a local level. The things I saw just made me gave up in the end...you'll never change the mentality and culture that has been built over hundreds of years.

That being said, how do you expect the states to meet their obligations? Plus they keep spending more and adding to the liabilities.

One man can’t. All I can do is vote to the best of my knowledge. System is way too bloated and protectionist. It’ll always work itself out. Too many good smart folks out there. And in here.

Sorry for my rants gang. It’s been building for awhile and feels good to vent. Thanks everyone! YAY pinball!

Yup, this. It's also interesting to look at how much money the government collects. Granted, this is for Federal, but it's still relevant:
https://www.thebalance.com/current-u-s-federal-government-tax-revenue-3305762

In 1975, the Federal government collected $279B. In 2018, that number is $3.4T. Even adjusting for inflation, the 1975 figure is "only" $1.3T. So if you account for inflation, Federal spending has almost tripled in 40+ years. And anytime someone talks about a spending cut, there's a segment of the population that proclaims the world will end, so nothing ever gets stopped (not to mention all the waste, as others have stated). So yeah, when you're adding more and more taxes, people are going to get upset - and when it's only for an expensive hobby, it will stop people from buying.

Well I know we are only talking pinball here, but it affects everything. It's cumulative. It all adds up. For those that think it is something illegal, it's a long standing loophole. Smart money concious people use loopholes. It's one of the few loopholes us middle class people had that actually made a difference. Now that loophole is going to be closed. It WILL affect things, including this hobby.

Look no further than the Beatles pin. An old basic design, a spinning disc, a few floating heads, and viola - a super LE game at a fat premium. Not only that. Repaint the trim and viola - a super, super LE game for even more money. Oh wait, a different color and a super, super, super LE for ridiculous money.

The Beatles game didnt sell well enough to keep the doors open at the Stern factory.

smart move, it's all downhill once you start eyeing up relatives at the family reunions.

isn't there a hockey game on ?

Mine too. Takes a real lack of common sense to not see the obvious.

People in favor of raising taxes are rarely in favor of raising their own. It is usually the result of envy or resentment.

Because no one likes dealing with unresponsive, unmotivated government customer service.

Now imagine having to do it with 50 different governments.....

The credit card processors don’t get involved with the sub elements of your transactions, knowing which portions are taxable, addresses, etc.

Other manufacturers in coin op have started charging taxes on any drop ship that is not going to a state where the distributor has a re sale license. I’m guessing Stern might have to end the process of drop shipping, or start charging taxes on them.

There is so much confusion in this thread because people have terrible new sources... there is not one new law that applies to all pinball sales.

What has changed is the Supreme Court ruling in June of 2018 removed the long standing restriction that a seller had to have the local presence before a state could mandate the business had to collect sales tax for that state. Example: California could not force a business in Virginia to collect California sales taxes for sales made to California residents. (Exceptions not covered here for keeping it simple)

As most know, your state has asked you to report those untaxed purchases so you would pay your state sales taxes on those sales yourself directly to the state as part of your tax returns.

In the wake of the Supreme Court decision... states now have the ability to enforce that a business collect the state sales tax and report it to the state at the time of sale.

The challenege is, this scotus change just ALLOWED states to do this... it did not make the actual change. Thus, each state is open to rewrite their rules and policies themselves... and it doesn’t have to match any other state. So when does it take effect, how, and exceptions are based on the state where the buyer is... not some common standard... and certainly not based on stern, or any one distributor. But some states have followed conventions of other state models... like South Dakota’s requirements. This is why you are seeing some common rules being thrown around. Those are similar laws... not one law for everyone.

It’s based on the state where you are resident, and your state’s current laws.

This is not something new for 2019! What is happening is more and more states are getting their new rules in place.

For an up to date list state by state of which states have this updated economic nexus definitions and what the thresholds are see - https://blog.taxjar.com/economic-nexus-laws

As for people thinking you can just go somewhere else to purchase something... that is another loophole they’ll close by making you disclosure those sales on your tax returns... and maybe at a later date for some catagories figure out how to catch them automatically. Like car sales taxes... they get you at registration and don’t care you bought it out of state... you gotta prove the tax you paid and owe the balance. They use the registration gate to do the enforcement.

What will happen in the long term is consolidation of this knowledge and processing into a payment portal tool like PayPal or future product from amazon/google/etc.

To help small business who can’t afford the overhead, a payment company will sell them the e-commerce tool that will handle all the decision making, reporting, and maybe even interfacing with the diffrent states.

Instead of millions of people reinventing the wheel... people will try to build a cloud product that will serve millions of businesses. It will be far more deep into a business than a merchant account is today... and will force businesses to integrate more... or face turning away customers.

But it’s the accountants that will really make out. Many states require registering as a business to submit tax collection... businesses will have to maintain those relations. Businesses that can’t support the scale, will likely limit who they sell to. Maybe you see more wholesale distribution and more local resellers of products.

For pinball, you might simply sell distributors simply limit to which states they will sell to. Which is kinda what the world used to be anyway...

Stern has to recognize their total cost to customers will increase... but I doubt they’ll make any adjustments. Businesses rarely do for new taxes.

Here's a interesting angle that I don't think has been discussed. I live very close to the US border, so I take advantage of the much lower cost of shipping internally in the US and get all my parts sent to a package depot there and then I pick them up and bring them thru the border and pay the Canadian taxes.

What I'm wondering is, now with these new rules will a company have to charge me the state tax based on the destination of the shipment, or will it be exempt because it is ultimately ending up in another country where the seller has no jurisdiction? This scenario will also come into play for people who live near state borders, ie Washington/Oregon.

So I guess the question is will the tax be applied on the basis of where you live. (billing address), or on where the goods are shipped to, (shipping address) just another complication in what looks like a real mess!!

sorry, if this has already been brought up as I have not followed this entire thread.

I am wondering if sales tax needs to be charged/paid on secondary sales of games?
i.e. person #1 buys and pays for a game and is charged/pays sales tax. They then sell to person #2 (let's say NIB still for the simplicity of it all); are they also supposed to be charged/pay on that secondary sale?

I ask for 2 reasons.
First is there are lots of guys that act as the little distributors in their region. They buy a bunch of games for a discount from a bigger distributor and then resell.
Second is that technically the sale from Stern to the original distributor is the first sale. We all know that distributors have to pay stern and then turn around and mark the game up before selling to the end user. The reality is that every NIB game is being sold the second time when it makes it to a home user.

The limits need to be raised, the burden on small business is simply too large. No small business should be forced to register and file sales taxes with every state. No small business should have to incur costs related to this. The burden should remain on the buyer to declare use taxes and it should be up to the states to enforce that. Buyers don’t like having to file to pay use taxes, contact your local representative. Difficult for states to enforce use tax collection, too bad, states should deal with it not a small out of state business. This tax is billed as helping brick and mortar. Mom and pop Selling widgets online are not doing that, amazon and others like it are where the issues lie. Limits should be raised to $10 million.

As I stated earlier, this is a tax grab and has nothing to do with saving brick and mortar. Society has changed. The convenienice of not having to drive, sit in traffic and waste an hour of time to get something, even if it is a few dollars more, is now more the norm. Sales tax is largely irrelevant in purchasing decisions for smaller ticket items. For larger ticket items, like pinball machines, it could change consumption (I.e., kill it) and that would be good for nobody.

Politicians are so short sighted.

It's almost amusing reading a Canadian's opinion that avoiding taxes "you rightfully owe" is immoral. Who the hell decided that you "rightfully owe" something? And is everything the gubmint does "moral" or "rightful?" You've been indoctrinated. Screw taxes. Each of us, American and Canadian alike, pays "wrongful" taxes to a gubmint corrupt, greedy and wasteful. The right thing to do is resist with everything we've got.

Again, I disagree. I pay my taxes for every purchase I make, without complaint.

This isn’t a new tax, you just can’t avoid it as easily as you used to.

IMHO refusing to pay taxes is the same as not paying your government. Anyone/anything without an income won’t last. Taxes are the way your government collects money to keep the country going. Without income the government would collapse or be shutdown. Whom runs the country when nobody’s getting paid to do it? The military? They want your money too. How about the state? Nope. They also want your money to stay a float. Municipalities? Same.

You might not like my socialist view, that’s ok you don’t have to like me, or my view, or my country. But the fact is that if everything is tax free then the world wouldn’t work.

America’s #1 export is debt to China. If taxes don’t pay for that what will?

Yet everyone wants to give less and less.

This is a separate issue. All governments are wasteful. Could I do a better job then they are? sure I could, in theory, but realistically running a country isn’t easy. For the most part America is doing well, so how bad is it really?

True dat

so this change will also likely push out some of the jr. distributors? or they will just do a pass through I suppose to the real end buyer?

Distributors in Sterns plan are actually vendors so they avoid the sales tax themselves but instead have to do all the collection BS and tracking.

Will dealers just avoid selling across country? Buy local/sell local. Or is the profit enough to deal with cross state tax laws? Or sell enough to just skirt the limit, then pass on sales to another dealer?

By having individual dealers setting individual prices stern forced their distributors to complete against each other. Without having a national dealer network themselves stern pushes their bullshit (maintenance and taxes?) onto the middleman. Dealers don’t help each other out now, do they? But you’ll have to ask yourself as a reseller, is it worth it?

Well it's not true. You pay sales tax on a new car, you pay sales tax on a used car...etc. The tax system needs an overhaul, that's for sure. Person to person sales with no registrations that don't go through 'stores' are the only way to truly avoid double tax. This is why online shopping took off so well. Everywhere else you pay tax new AND used. The car thing happens because they can get away with it. I've never understood if anyone has tried to contest it or change it, but if not, it needs to be.

(sorry realized we are pretty much saying the same thing)

You have a lot to say about something you clearly don't even understand what people are complaining about. No one is saying not to pay taxes, or their fair share of taxes. Secondly, the two countries handle taxes differently, so for you to be all high and mighty about it really doesn't mean anything. There are so many apologists on this forum you'd think it was full of 18 year olds that don't know how the world works. Maybe the flip side is it's a bunch of really old guys who gave up the fight long ago and just bend over.

Buy anything used from a store like goodwil, double taxes.

It happens all the time.

Luckydogg420

Not to pick on you, but because you've been the most vocal on this thread, this response is pointed to you.

Your over the top political commentary needs to stop. No one likes someone spilling their political views all over a thread, especially pushing their agenda, telling everyone else what they should or shouldn't do. This "moral obligation" point you keep making is a detractor from the thread and is pissing people off.

We get it. You lean left, believe everyone should have access to everything even if they don't pay for it (i.e. healthcare), and if you make more money than others, you should pay more taxes, etc., etc., etc. That's great, that's your opinion, and I respect that. However, you need to remember that half of the world will disagree with you on every viewpoint you have, and they're not wrong either.

My ask (and I'm sure some others would like this too) is to stay on topic moving forward. This new tax law is a big deal here in the US and most of us are trying to figure out what the best options are for us moving forward.

Thank you Luckydogg.

I come on here and say. You gotta pay taxes for everthing that your supposed to pay taxes for. just because you've used a loophole for years doesn't make it right. Now the loophole is closed and it's time to do what you should have been doing all along.

I get called a stupid Canadian, I know nothing about this. Well, ok. Attack me personally. I'm ok with that. Your opinion of me doesn't matter to me.

Now just to suppose for a min.

Suppose an IRS agent was reading this thread and came on here and said. "Well guys, you really should be paying sales tax for your district." Would they get blasted like i am.

My opinion are mine, and they're just opinions. I haven't needed to personally attack anyone on here to feel better about myself

I don't think that your calling another country's system "failed" makes it easy to listen to your viewpoint

Canadians love comparing themselves to America(ns) and looking down on them. It's a national past time.

Just stating the truth.

AFM95

Thanks for the respectful response.

I believe in a shared system, not pay to play, remember not everything is free to everyone in Canada.

But there's no way you will convince me that if you can buy a $5k toy, that you can't afford the sales tax on it. Especially if you live in a area that you should be paying that tax. Regardless of buying it online or at a brick and mortar store.

I believe if your address requires sales tax then you man up and pay it. Dont look for ways to avoid it. If you truly hate sales taxes in your area, move to a less taxed area. Taxes are here for a reason and avoiding them only helps your own pocket. And some people are ok with that, I'm not. Maybe it's my poor morals in wanting to do my part?

Taxation is theft. Under threat of violence no less. I'm not willing to put a gun to my neighbor's head because I want a library.

It's like this whole conversation has went over your head. Please read up on American history.

After all that I've learned on the American tax system in the last couple days, it's hard to say it's not failing on many levels.

Canada is failing in many areas to. The idea is to work toward something better.

(Maybe to much time with family over the holidays has got me a little more salty then usual. I need to smoke a joint and calm the fuck down)

Whenever I read your posts, I'm reminded when I lived in Niagara Falls, NY and used to see Canadians come over the border to buy clothes. They'd sit in the parking lot, rip all of the tags off the clothes, litter the parking lot, and then put all the clothes on so that they could go back to Canada and not pay tax on anything (they'd wear a half dozen t-shirts, a couple pairs of pants, etc, all at once to avoid taxes.). Just sayin'.

So you say that it is a failed system, but think people should just blindly agree to everything and just throw money at it? Makes sense....................................................

Maybe this is all just a case of the Dunning Kruger affect. I'm to stupid to realize how stupid I am when talking about something outside my experience. I'll give ya that. Could be.

Yup, (this ain't me) but I wouldn't doubt it. This country is filled with tax avoiders too. I still dont agree with it.

That's a bit incorrect - General Sales taxes and Auto taxes are not one in the same.

Sales tax is not collected typically on private resale. Cars are a special case where states have enacted specific USE taxes on those items, not just general sales tax. And in the case of cars, the Auto Use & Sales tax is collected by the state prior to allowing you to register the vehicle.

Note, when you sell a car privately, you don't collect tax... but the buyer is obligated to pay it, and the state will enforce it before allowing the car to be registered for use.

Good call out, I spaced off use tax...which is funny since I mentioned it earlier in the thread

Do you really believe that most people put the true price they paid for a used car on that paperwork?

It wasn't really a loophole... it was that we actually have a system of different governments, constrained in what they can do. The tax wasn't applicable in the past because it did not apply to the type of transaction, and the limits of government prevented state governments from pursuing it. That was the standard - and why mail order (even before the internet) did not collect state sales tax.

Only after the way the economy functioned and shifted so much activity to online sales did the states try to make a landgrab on those transactions - but their hands were tied in trying to enforce their new claim. Now, those ties have been broken, and they can go and try to enforce this new projection of jurisdiction.

This situation is actually about states claiming a new jurisdiction of taxation, which was crippled for a significant period, and now is opened up. But it was still a new claim on jurisdiction of what was taxable.

For instance, we do not enforce tariffs or taxes on goods that move over state lines... so are we buying something and then shipping it across the state line, or is it a purchase within the state? This is part of the shift in claims that have happened over time.

Do you really think the state is that obtuse?

At least here, you pay the use tax based on the higher of either the amount paid, or the book value. You can't claim you bought it for a dollar and pay tax on that.. you still owe tax on the book value of the car.

https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title58.1/chapter24/section58.1-2405/
C. In the case of the sale or use of a motor vehicle, which is not a new motor vehicle, between individuals who are not required to be licensed as dealers or salespersons under the provisions of § 46.2-1508, the Commissioner may collect the tax upon the basis of the total sale price as established by such evidence as the Commissioner may require; provided that if such motor vehicle is no more than five years old and is listed in a recognized pricing guide, the total sale price shall not be less than the value listed in such pricing guide for such vehicle, less an allowance of $1,500, unless the purchaser shall execute an affidavit under penalty of perjury stating a lesser total sale price and declaring such sale or use to be a bona fide transaction for full value. In using a recognized pricing guide, the Commissioner shall use the trade-in value specified in such guide, with no additions for optional equipment or subtractions for mileage, so long as uniformly applied for all types of motor vehicles. In no case shall any credit be allowed for trade-in, prior rental, or any other transaction of like nature.

No. Quite the opposite. You live in a community that provides services to your neighborhood. For whatever reason they couldn't make ends meet and imposed a sales tax to offset spending. (I'm not arguing that your community is spending it well) To avoid THAT sales tax people have made purchases online from outside their community. (I disagree with avoiding the tax, not online purchasing) Now the Gov has made it enforceable that your community can collect sales tax that was lost through this loophole (they're trying to fix a broken system, is that a bad thing?)

If everyone always paid the proper taxes for their area already, would the Gov need to close a loophole? Or should the loophole remain and communities suffer lost revenue from the people living there?

Sorry. I love this kind of debate, but I have to work now. Ya know. Pay the tax man and all that.

Great post. I wish more Americans would hear from business owners and how taxes/regulations cripple them. You can argue all you want about what is "fair" or "moral" but in the end we all pay more for goods and services.

That seems to only apply to vehicles 5 years old or less. There are many cars on the road that don't fall into hat range