In light of the debate whether what is yours is yours, or if it is only yours when government decides what is yours, 2 bills were just defeated that would raise the tax on internet purchases and take away the tax refund option on bad retail loans.
AB 1840 applies sales tax to certain Internet transactions, known as the I-Tunes tax. The we need revenue crowd only numbered 18 Aye votes and 31 No votes, including 4 Dems.
AB 1839 went down by 24-33 with 3 Dems voting No. If a retailer had sold it’s financing paper of a retail item to a "Big Finance" house, if that became a bad debt, the lender could no longer recover the sales tax via refund, from the state. The state is in effect saying, "nope, thats mine, too bad for you" even though the retailer is eligible for the refund and rightly so. In the floor presentation of the bill, the author included a statement that asked "When did the state become a partner of these businesses on their bad sales tax debt?" I know. When the state became everyone’s silent partner by forcing retailers to be the state’s sales tax collector.
Well, we do win a few around here sometimes.