Subject: Taxes and the IETF TRADE Working Group

From: "Donald E. Eastlake 3rd" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Mar 1999 08:26:06 -0500

As far as I am aware, the only specific proposal before the working
group is the ability to optionally annotate an order description so
that it can be indicated what part of the price is taxes (and/or
shipping and/or handling etc.).  Since this sort of annotation is
common on paper documents that one gets in the concrete world, they
seem like a good idea to me.  In all the arguments, I haven't seen any
good reason not to include the option to permit merchants to make such
annotations.

Most of the discussion on taxes has little to do with the Internet
Opne Trading Protocol we are developing, at least as it stands now.
But I hesitate to clamp down too hard on the discussion because the
ways in which governments will want to tax various types of
transactions will likely, in opinion, effect future versions of the
protocol.

In thinking about taxes on Internet purchases, it is important to
remember that a substantial number of them are for hard goods that get
shipped to the consumer.  In those cases, I don't see that using the
Internet for communications in making the purchase is much differnt
from using the telephone.

Thanks,
Donald
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 Donald E. Eastlake 3rd   +1 914-276-2668     [email-masked]
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