🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1991Sep11.015831.26299@usenet.ins.cwru.edu> tlg4@po.CWRU.Edu (TJ Goldstein) writes:
>
>
>Seems to me that if someone obtains Shareware and then pays for
>it, it would be the AUTHOR, the recipient of the money, who
>should remit the sales tax.  The BBS is just a "library" where the
>stuff can be obtained.  It's like a university library.  You have 
>to be, in most cases, a student, to use it.  Therefore you are, in
>a sense, paying for your access.  But nobody is taxing the books
>you borrow.
>
>As for public domain, hey, I say it's worth... oh... $1?  That
>means the tax is ... what, 8 cents?  Who's going to prove any
>different.  If I can "sell" someone a car for $1, why not a
>computer program?

This won't fly. You'll find most tax authorities quite unwilling to
accept estimates of value that don't come close to their own desires.
I read a nice story about a couple in Vermont who bought a car that
was falling apart for about $100 plus several bales of hay. They tried
to claim it was worth about $100, but were told it was actually worth
about $800 (some current market rate from the blue book, or something
like it). Tax authorities don't generally leave you to estimate value
as you see fit.

-- paul
-- 
Paul Barton-Davis	 | I am bored prefixing everything I say with "I think" 
UW CS Lab		 | or "in my opinion". Everything I say is my opinion; 
pauld@cs.washington.edu	 | the only thing of which I am certain is that there 
+1 206 543 0377		 | is very little of which one can be certain.