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Monday, September 2, 2013
3 Reasons Same-Sex Spouses Will Hate IRS Marriage Equality
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Is it even possible to raise fast-food worker pay? - CNBC
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Labor Day blues: Most Americans take work home - CNBC
Navigated from Labor Day blues: Most Americans take work home - CNBC | shared via feedly mobile
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Labor Day 2013: Fun Facts about the Holiday Weekend - Holidays - Cumming, GA Patch
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Morning Bell: Is America Still the Land of Labor?
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Morning Bell: Is America Still the Land of Labor?
For all the talk these days of how to revive our supposedly moribund American Dream, it took a college dropout-turned-actor to state the obvious.
"I believe that opportunity looks a lot like work," Ashton Kutcher recently said at the Teen Choice Awards. "I never had a job in my life that I was better than. I was always just lucky to have a job. And every job I had was a stepping stone to my next job, and I never quit my job until I had my next job. And so opportunities look a lot like work."
That such remarks made national headlines is revealing of the battered state of our once robust culture of work. In America, we no longer extol hard work the way we used to. For every movie that celebrates drive and dedication, Hollywood churns out dozens featuring irresponsible, dim-witted, lazy bumblers. The "work is for suckers" mentality is no longer confined to a few marginal Huck Finns: "Seinfeld's" permanently unemployed Kramer is a cultural icon.
Public opinion has also become much more tolerant of idleness. When Alexis de Tocqueville travelled through America in the 1830s, he was struck by the very strong prejudice in favor of work:
I sometimes met rich young people, enemies by temperament of every painful effort, who had been forced to take up a profession. Their nature and their fortune permitted them to remain idle; public opinion imperiously forbade it to them, and they had to obey.
Public opinion imperiously forbids many things today, including smoking and not recycling, but not working is most definitely not one of them. We have not (yet) become a nation of slackers, mooches, and loafers, but we may reasonably wonder whether America is still "the Land of Labor," as Benjamin Franklin described the country to prospective immigrants.
The erosion of our culture of work has profound ramifications for the health of the American Dream. Along with economic freedom, a culture that sustains, encourages, and honors hard work is one of the twin pillars that make the American Dream possible. The American Dream, after all, is dreamed by dreamers—but achieved by workers.
This is how our great apostle of upward mobility, Frederick Douglass, summed up his message to those trying to get ahead in life:
WORK! WORK!! WORK!!! WORK!!!! Not transient and fitful effort, but patient, enduring, honest, unremitting and indefatigable work into which the whole heart is put, and which, in both temporal and spiritual affairs, is the true miracle worker.
On this Labor Day, let us then remind ourselves that opportunity does indeed look a lot like work. Let us exhort people to work hard, persevere, and give it all they have, rather than sapping their spirits by emphasizing all that is unfair in life and channeling their energies toward demanding more from others.
Let us ask, "What can I do for myself and my fellow citizens?" and not "What must my country do for me?" And let us draw inspiration from those who have succeeded through their own efforts, rather than foster resentment by recasting their success as inequality.
Read the Morning Bell and more en español every day at Heritage Libertad.
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The post Morning Bell: Is America Still the Land of Labor? appeared first on The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation.
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Amazon now collects sales taxes in 12 states thanks to Georgia and Virginia levies that took effect Sept. 1
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Amazon now collects sales taxes in 12 states thanks to Georgia and Virginia levies that took effect Sept. 1
It's getting harder to escape online sales taxes.
As of today, Sept. 1, shoppers in Georgia and Virginia who purchase products from the internet giant Amazon will see their states' sales taxes added to their bills.
This brings to 12 the number of states in which Amazon collects sales taxes. That's also this week's By the Numbers figure.
Photo by MikeBlogs via Flickr Creative Commons
The dozen states, so far, where Amazon collects sales taxes are Arizona, California, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Washington.
Expanding nexus: In most states where Amazon has agreed to collect sales taxes, the online seller has tied the tax collection to physical nexus that is or will soon be located in the jurisdiction.
Nexus is the standard, thanks to the 1992 U.S. Supreme Court Quill v. North Dakota decision, whereby retailers must collect sales taxes from out-of-state customers when the business has a physical presence in the purchasers' state.
Of interest in the Peach State is that Amazon does not have a bricks and mortar facility in Georgia and apparently, per the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, does not plan to build warehouse, distribution or other operations in the state.
To get around the physical presence issue of Quill, some states, including Georgia, have enacted laws that expand the nexus concept to companies' in-state affiliates. This covers the folks who get paid when Amazon ads on their websites are clicked.
The Georgia law, which took effect in January, also covers companies that use physical facilities within the state even if they don't own them. And that's seems to be the hook for the online giant in Georgia.
Amazon owns Fabric.com, a Georgia-based website that notes in its FAQ that it has "a large warehouse distribution facility."
It's unclear, however, why it took until September for Amazon to be affected. I suspect now that big dog Amazon is complying with the law, the state will go after other online retailers who are ignoring the law. Georgia's online sales tax effect: Amazon buyers in Georgia now pay an additional 4 percent for their products. The online tax bill could be higher if the customers live in cities and counties that collect added sales taxes.
State tax officials estimate that Amazon's collections could net the state $18 million a year.
Some Georgia shoppers, however, say they no longer will shop Amazon.
"The amount of shopping I do online with Amazon will go down drastically. I will find other Internet retailers who still don't collect the sales tax to purchase from," writes Clifford Martin in comments responding to CummingPatch's question "Will Amazon's Tax Collection Change Your Spending Habits?"
Beachbum, however, takes a different approach: "The convenience of buying unique products that are not sold in Cartersville. No gas money spent, no time spent running around looking for different things. Last year I did 80% of my Christmas shopping online (mostly Amazon) and this year I hope to do 100% of it without having to step foot in the store. I have no problem paying the sales tax; was never an issue for me."
Yes, Virginia, there is an Amazon tax: Today, Sept. 1, also is a dreaded day for online shoppers a few states northward.
Virginia now requires out-of-state Internet retailers that have business operations in the state to start collecting its 5.3 percent state sales tax (4.3 percent goes to the state and 1 percent to local jurisdictions).
And yes, Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads area residents, this also applies to your 0.7 percent higher sales tax rate of 6 percent. But unlike in Georgia, it's not such a surprise for Amazon shoppers. Virginia officials and Amazon reached a deal back in February 2012 for the online seller to begin the tax collection this month.
And again unlike in Georgia, Amazon's Virginia deal also included two fulfillment centers in Virginia, an investment of around $135 million and the promise of more than 1,350 jobs.
When Virginia lawmakers passed the online sales tax bill last year, state officials estimated that the Old Dominion would receive as much as $24 million in additional state and local sales tax revenue.
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