I don't really see adding a tax into commerce for the federal government as a bad idea. A couple of percent tax is not crippling, and it would really help us cover our bills. It would also be an equal tax. Sales tax is the tax every consumer pays, and for the most part we all pay it equally. leeway is given to businesses that manufacture and resell to be sales tax free if the purpose of the materials is to be resold. That is where a business is allowed to avoid sales tax in order to help it exist.
Really, this sort of tax should be applied to all goods sold to the US market. This way when foreign businesses make their success based on the american people, they also contribute to america and it's market.
About the only complaint i can see is giving more money to the fuckwits in congress to blow on bullshit. Still, it is more revenue and i do not see it killing off small business at all. The days of tax free internet sales are limited in the US. Right now it is a tax dodge to use the internet. It actually promotes using non-local businesses and sending money away from where you live. You are supposed to pay tax on purchases inside your state which means if you want to avoid sales tax you purchase out of state, and the revenues go to making other places better.
I really fail to see how this actually cripples small business, and that is as a person who owns and operates them.
A Federal sales Tax would apply to all online retailers AND all Brick and mortar Stores, added to the State Sales Taxes they are already responsible for collecting.
a federal sales tax might start at 2% but each year could go up as the gvt spends more and more, and some day could be an additional 5% or an additional 10% in federal sales tax, on TOP OF the federal income taxes, the federal Medicare taxes, the federal Social Security taxes, the federal gasoline taxes, and the federal cigarette taxes, and the federal liquor taxes etc etc etc...while ONLY the income tax being progressive and ALL OTHER taxes being REGRESSIVE, hitting the poor and middle class the MOST.
Sales taxes DECREASE sales, this is why some states have chosen not to have a sales tax, so to better compete in regions and get customers to shop in their stores. Up here we have new Hampshire without a sales tax...people from Maine, Massachusetts and Vermont, (and connecticut residents and Rhode Island too depending on where they live in the states) are only a hop, skip and a jump away....we even make the trip over to New Hampshire to buy our liquor for any big party we are having.
States are suppose to compete with each other, to make each State, the best that it can be...adding a federal tax on top of what states have chosen for themselves, would hurt this process as well, imho.
Care