Reuters: Ebay Lobbies users against tax collectors!

John Donahoe, CEO of ebay, Donahoi to the company http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/18749.html "> Online market hundreds of millions of of users send e-mails to lobby users against the looming U.S. federal excise tax legislation.

The E-commerce giant plans to send mail to at least 40 million ebay users, including most of its online market. Donahoi's first e-mail was sent out in the United States on the morning of Sunday local time. In the mail, Donahoi said the legislation, the Market Equity Act (Marketplace Fairness Act), was unfair to small online businesses and called on ebay users to send mail to U.S. lawmakers to request a change in the legislation.

U.S. senators will vote on the legislation in recent days. The legislation empowers U.S. states to impose an online sales tax on non-state retailers selling in the state. Currently, states can only levy sales taxes on local businesses that own physical stores. The Excise Act provides for a tax exemption for businesses that sell less than 1 million dollars a year on out-of-state sales.

Donahoi said in an e-mail that sales of less than $10 million a year, or businesses with fewer than 50 employees, should be exempt from tax. "This legislation takes the same attitude towards you (small electricity dealers) and large online retailers, such as Amazon, that sell up to billions of dollars," he wrote in an e-mail. It can be said that the burden set by your business is much greater than that of a large national retailer. ”

Donahoi said Amazon sold more than 10 million dollars every 90 minutes, and that the world's largest Internet retailer had more trans-regional tax resources in the states than a typical small business. Ebay has also conducted similar lobbying activities with users. Meg Whitman, the CEO of ebay in 2006, wrote to nearly 10 million users about the need for neutrality and keeping the Internet open.

Brian Bieron, senior director of global public affairs at ebay, said: "This is the largest grassroots lobbying activity on ebay," says Billon. Congress is about to vote on the legislation, and it is time to give our users an opportunity to express their ideas. "From the size of the ebay lobbying, ebay will probably lose more than Amazon if the legislation is formally enacted without modification," he said.

Amazon has supported tax exemptions for small retailers with annual sales of less than $500,000 trillion, and said that if they were above that, there would be too many small online retailers to enjoy unfair tax advantages over large retailers.

Wehn Johnson (Wayne Johnson) is a Idaho State retailer with annual sales of $2.5 million on ebay. If the legislation is passed, Mr Johnson says, he will have to readjust his business, which will cause great losses. With only eight employees and an accountant in his company at the moment, he will eventually have to make the decision to lay off staff. Johnson believes that, after the passage of the legislation, cooperation with ebay may also face some problems, very worrying. So we're going to consider working with Amazon because Amazon can handle warehousing, fulfilling orders and shipping.

Of course, Amazon's extra charge for these services also means that Johnson's income will be compromised. But he said he would make sure his business was working, no matter what the situation was. "Despair, in any case, I will stick to my business," Johnson continued, "Even if all my employees run away, I can continue my business with my son." ”

Via Reuters