Versus Noninternet News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

The internet sales tax bill passed in the senate today. reaction to the vote tells you a lot about the reality of washington lobbying. brian bieron of ebay. ebay worked hard to defeat this legislation. they even sent out e-mails to customers trying to rally customer base. big question for you is, look, everybody has got to pay sales tax when buying in a physical location. the technology exists. when i order something, they know they're shipping it to my address in new york, new york is a sales tax, shouldn't we just level the playing field and have everybody paying taxes? why have this imagina...

Rachelle, is there evidence, empirical evidence that in the states without the sale taxes, oregon for example, that people are more inclined to buy at brick and mortar stores? do we have any evidence suggesting that's the case? >> no, i don't have any evidence of that case. and as a matter of fact, i have to say when we survey consumers to determine whether they would spend less on the internet, if sales taxes are imposed, in fact, they say that they would probably maybe about 10% of them say that they think that they might spend less, but most think they would continue the current spending ha...

You. it is i think a little known fact to folks, i only only just found out, that you're supposed to pay these taxes. you're supposed to file in your tax return everything you bought over the internet, you're supposed to record what you bought over the internet, sales tax wasn't applied to, and literally -- not literally, that's not true, almost literally no one does this. the numbers are laughable. the point is, this tax, it already exists. what exactly is the policy rational for having a tax that exists that is in the law that is in the letter of the law and it goes completely uncollected wh...

Patrick up because something very, very strange just happened. what happened is that we witnessed one of those rare moments, when you get to open up the body and see how washington actually works with none of the ideological or partisan covering that people are there fighting over ideas. this was not a fight over ideas this was one collision of interests fighting against another collision of interests. on the one side, you have republican senators mike ensy and john thune leading the fight alongside democrats and big box retailers like walmart and target. on the other side, senators from state...

Tax wasn't applied to, and literally -- not literally, that's not true, almost literally no one does this. the numbers are laughable. the point is, this tax, it already exists. what exactly is the policy rational for having a tax that exists that is in the law that is in the letter of the law and it goes completely uncollected when there is $23 billion of revenue for states laying on the table? >> chris, there really isn't $23 billion as you saw from your statistic, there is about $225 billion of e-commerce that goes on. almost half of it already has sales taxes because giant -- no, no, no. bu...