From a FLOSS perspective...
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| Author | Content |
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| cubrewer Apr 14, 2006 9:09 PM EDT |
We need to be especially vigilant about small technical details. For example, on page 5 of this SSTP document, we find: There is a rebuttable presumption that a seller has exercised due diligence if the seller has attempted to determine the nine digit zip code designation by utilizing software approved by the Governing Board that makes this designation from the street address and the five digit zip code of the purchaser. [emphasis added] http://www.streamlinedsalestax.org/issue_papers/RatesandBoun... So, what if the approved software is Windows-based? What if it runs on Linux (BSD, pick your favorite) but it's completely closed? That's not ridiculous because there are no good "open" data sources for this sort of software... zip code data has to be purchased from the US post office and "open" data for geocoding addresses (e.g., TIGER) is notoriously poor (check out Geo::Coder::US if you're a Perl programmer). The best data is sold by companies like NavTek that invest a lot of dollars in collecting the data and then charge for the use of their data. And even if free software programmers somehow overcame this data issue, what if the "Governing Board" simply decided that free software was... oh, pick your silly objection... not secure enough. Or maybe there's a hefty fee to be paid when you submit your software to the board for approval... All this is conjecture or even paranoia... but we are talking about the government here. Nearly everything about this SSTP is antithetical to the values of the free software movement. And while the US is, theoretically, a democracy, this project has a lot of momentum. Taxes and compliance in general are somewhere between an annoyance and a crushing burden for businesses. Forcing ecommerce sites to use a "simplified" sales tax system would entail significant additional red tape. As Tracer says, be vocal with your representatives. And if this issue is new to you, please keep an eye on it in the news and at http://www.netchoice.org/. |
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