What no one is talking about here is how this would be handled, especially for a small online sellers. There are almost 10,000 tax jurisdictions (https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/mccon...) and you're not allowed to collect sales tax unless you register for that jurisdiction. There is also a fee collected by most jurisdictions to register and most make you send in periodic reports, even if you didn't collect any taxes for them.
"...South Dakota, whose law requires retailers with more than $100,000 in sales or 200 transactions annually in the state to pay a 4.5 percent tax on purchases"
"..Kennedy’s majority opinion strongly suggested the measure was constitutional, in part because it has the $100,000 threshold and doesn’t try to impose retroactive taxation."
A clear bar is set for what is covered here and what is a burden.
See [1]. Sales tax as a service is available from seven different providers. Shopping cart integration is available. You pay one bill, they handle the rest.
With fee, do you mean that you have to pay a yearly fee for simply registering as possibly collecting taxes for that jurisdiction? Not sure what most is, but ~30-50 pay-to-play fee's a year will certainly hurt the small businesses.
I think it's good to start harmonizing the sales taxes, but such a fee (if I understand you correctly) should be removed...
(1) very large organizations with retail over a wide area as a core business focus would handle relations with taxing jurisdictions directly as a central function.
(2) medium scale organizations would outsource tax compliance to specialized vendors that would handle it.
(3) very small organizations would either do the same as medium orgs (assuming vendors handle them) or just not sell into many jurisdictions.
If only we had .. machines which can look up an item in a huge list of items and find some specific properties about it.. just think! We could sell maybe two or three of these machines a year.
then states need to step in and set "online" rates that trump the local rates. many states already do similar with Ad valorem taxes on automobiles. Taxes aren't your only problem, there local restrictions on items sales that one area considers hazardous or regulated that another doesn't even acknowledge.
> What no one is talking about here is how this would be handled, especially for a small online sellers.
Strange huh? Seems like the little guy is being attacked by the elites in every manner possible. Whether it is small online sellers, small time youtubers, independent freelance journalists, small time artists, writers, etc, seems like the rules are being changed to favor corporations and the heavy hitters. Heck, even search and social media results/algorithms are changing to cater to corporations.
Odd that this story hasn't gotten that much traction anywhere either. You'd think something this important would be all over hacker news and social media. I remember Bezos used to be very vocal whenever internet tax issues came up. He's been awfully quiet. Oh that's right, amzn is no longer a small time book and music seller.
I have a hunch that this will, in the end, be a massive win for large retailers vs. small ones. The task of figuring out how to calculate tax for all states is more or less the same amount of work regardless of size, which means for someone like Amazon it's more or less trivial, but for a mom-and-pop store it's a major hassle.
Something like ten years ago now, Washington State changed their sales tax requirements in a way that required the seller to look up the four-digit rate code of the buyer, both for determining the rate to charge and later for remitting to the state. The quarterly file they provide with this information is ~150000 rows. Prior to that date, you just reported for the jurisdiction in which the business was registered.
Between this and similarly far-reaching laws (e.g., GDPR), it's becoming increasingly burdensome for small players to the point where secondary services like Avalara are effectively required.
> Between this and similarly far-reaching laws (e.g., GDPR), it's becoming increasingly burdensome for small players to the point where secondary services like Avalara are effectively required.
Sounds like a good justification for a federal GST instead of the patchwork of (hyper) local sales taxes. I fully understand why that will never happen in the United States (states' rights), and think that it's the tax patchwork that's the problem not the requirement to collect taxes itself.
Most of the coverage I've seen downplays it, but it should be noted that the question is not whether tax is owed on these out-of-state internet purchases, but whether the retailer should be required to collect it and submit it to the state. Currently, the purchaser is (in 45 of 50 states) legally required to pay a "use tax", but most Americans (98%?) are blissfully unaware of this requirement, or have simply decided not to pay it. This is pure illegal tax evasion, based on the (correct) assumption that enforcement is lax and risk of punishment is low: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/04/16/177384487/most...
Rather than attempting to enforce these existing laws against their residents (unpopular and difficult), states believe it will be easier to get compliance from retailers. Until this decision, it was unconstitutional under the Commerce Clause for a state to demand this collection unless the retailer had a "substantial nexus" in the state, generally defined as a physical presence. Post-decision (pending new national laws created by Congress) all retailers are fair game. The particular South Dakota law in question has requirements as to volume of purchase, but this is not a principle of the decision.
Beyond the implications for internet retailers, this is an interesting counter-example to the Supreme Court tradition of "stare decisis" (to stand by things already decided). Apparently, everyone on the court agrees that earlier decisions that produced the physical location test were poor precedent. Usually, the court is very reluctant to revisit these decisions, but in this case, the majority justices decided to abandon precedent and explicitly call the earlier decisions mistakes. The dissenting justices, despite conceding that "Bellas Hess was wrongly decided", felt that the court was better off sticking with the flawed precedent than changing things up now.
Personally, whether or not this is good constitutional precedent, I think I agree with the dissenters that allowing local jurisdictions to make laws affecting far-away businesses who have no other local presense is going to lead to problems. Beyond just the burden of collecting confusing locally defined taxes, I fear about where else it leads. If a locality can enforce its local tax laws, what other custom crafted local laws can it enforce in return for access to customers? Can it require a business license? Should it be allowed to enforce its local environmental and labor standards as well? Is this a good thing?
Yet another tenuous stretching of nexus by lawyers who have little interest in how technology works, but do have every incentive to justify increasing their own scope. This is the equivalent of telling New Hampshire stores that they're responsible for collecting Massachusetts sales tax for people coming over the border to shop.
A business collecting taxes for the state they are in, even for orders shipped out of state, would make sense. But the individual states seem unwilling to do this, as it would decrease their own businesses' advantage. And that's the whole point - we should welcome competition in tax rates, wherever it can possibly even be found.
Referencing New England was not arbitrary, as the ability to drive two states over to simply have dinner is a condition that holds the state governments to a modicum of honesty.
I find it hard to argue with from a fairness perspective. Clearly, retail is in a much different place from when Quill was decided. My concern is more in how a mom & pop online shop operating independently complies as a practical matter, which means not only collecting the right amount for different types of items but presumably remitting and filing with a huge number of different tax jurisdictions.
What a boon for SaaS payment providers, and what a loss for both smaller and larger shops doing things in-house.
We are seeing in action the consolidation and corporatization of the internet, as regulators and laws catch up from the wild west days. This is how every industry goes, but start saying goodbye to startups as they've been for the last 15 years. Already its a better deal for most workers to just work at a bigco (and has been for a while).
Of course, this doesn't address whether internet sites should have to deal with state taxes (they probably should), but gosh everything is getting a heck of a lot more complicated.
The situation for retailers shipping to states where they have no physical presence reminds me of the situation of foreign retailers with significant online sales to customers in the EU.
In each case, the seller (who has no physical or other presence in X) is required to collect tax from the buyer (a resident of X) and remit it to the tax authorities in X.
The tax is owed by a resident of X, to the tax authorities in X. But the tax authorities in X want someone outside X to collect it on their behalf.
EDIT: According to Wikipedia, some states charge sellers sales tax, and others do it the way I assumed (tax is charged to buyers, but collected by sellers).
Isn't this at some level taxation without representation? If I don't like how some other state is taxing, I can't alter that behaviour by voting. At least in my current state I might have a chance to do so.
This is good news for the country, even if it's bad for my wallet. The prior state of affairs was absurd. Online retailers already have major advantages in terms of convenience and inventory. Getting a N% discount vs. brick and mortar by not charging taxes was completely unnecessary.
Exposing consumers to more regressive sales taxes is in no way good for the country. What would be good for the country is to abolish sales taxes entirely.
The unintended consequence may be to drive business offshore. The de minimis import duty was quadrupled to $800 a few years ago (meaning no duty while US retailers pay duty buying in bulk and incorporate into the US price) and this could be yet another advantage handed to sellers outside the country.
Unless I'm totally misunderstanding this, doesn't this mean the following:
If you sell a few thousand digital goods (let's say video courses or ebooks) to people spread across 30 states in the US over the year, you will be responsible to collect sales tax and do the paperwork to pay each of those 30 states sales tax every quarter (or per year)?
When dealing with a low priced item, it's not difficult to accumulate a high number of transactions.
Not only are those fees a huge financial burden but I imagine the act of filing all of that is going to kill any motivation to do anything. For me, I'll end up either stop doing what I love (creating educational content to help other developers while making enough $ to live on) or move to a different country with a better tax system.
> The vote was 5 to 4. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote the majority opinion and was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch.
I can't imagine we're gonna see RBG agreeing with the Alito/Gorsuch/Thomas clan too often.
> Grover Norquist, president of the anti-tax group Americans for Tax Reform, said in a statement, "Today the Supreme Court said yes -- you can be taxed by politicians you do not elect and who act knowing you are powerless to object."
That doesn't follow. The people being taxed are the people living in that state, and their representatives are enacting that tax. As usually Norquist is making up BS to scare people.
Wrong. If you live in a state without income tax, buy a product from a company in the same state, and then ship the product to your friend in Texas, you have to pay Texas sales even though you have never been to Texas.
So, if a state has a flat sales tax for all purchases then that's pretty easy to implement. But often you tax different categories of product at different rates. And there are fuzzy edges. The advertisements for Fig Netwons famously were "a cookie is just a cookie, but Newtons are fruit and cake." But is that true, legally speaking? And if it's true in one state jurisdiction does that that necessarily translate to another? How you you avoid having to figure out the tax rate for each product you carry in each of the 50 states?
This is great news for Amazon. They already collect sales tax on everything they sell in most states (47 I think?). Now that smaller sellers (marketplace sellers, eBay, etc.) also have to collect tax, that hurts the ~8% discount built in, so why even shop around?
There should be no sales tax to begin with, Or income tax or property tax.... Most taxes can be simplified and reduced to a 1 simple wealth tax.
If you look at this matters with some attention you realize system works against poor...
Only income taxes are progressive. And Rich don't get richer because of their income.
Whether you're a trillion dollar company or about to make your first sale to pay rent you owe same amout of sales tax.
Wether you live in NYC and pay 3k in rent or live in Alaska you pay same federal income tax.
.... Wealth tax is way simpler... It let's govt tax wealth/income on its last form. Like a fraction in reduced form, or equation that's been simplified.
Easier to conduct business, easier to start business, easier to pay taxes, easier to be poor. Much much fair to all.
Capital tax is not same as wealth tax. In fact if you have wealth tax there is no need for capital tax.
I suggest 4% wealth tax and remove pretty much all other taxes.
If your wealth is 200 billion, first year you pay 8 billion.
If your wealth is $5000 then you pay only.. $200, doesn't matter if you earned 400k. If you didn't accquire assets you spent it and some else have that now so they will pay it...if you bought stuff then your wealth isn't really 5k
>Although the court left open the possibility that other arguments could be pressed against the South Dakota law, Kennedy’s majority opinion strongly suggested the measure was constitutional, in part because it has the $100,000 threshold and...
Anyone know where the Constitution talks about this $100,000 threshold?
>doesn’t try to impose retroactive taxation.
Similar to how it presumably not limiting what arms can be sold makes it 'constitutional'.
Someone needs to develop a service to make calculating and paying the sales tax easier. Something like plugin an address and it spits out the tax percentage and where to remit the payment to. Ideally the states would get together and create a centralized service so companies don't have to be mailing checks to every single county government that has a sales tax.
The problem with this is: how do you know what the tax rate is for the product you're selling? For instance, if you're in New Jersey and you're selling a clothing item like a pair of socks, then there's no tax. But if you're selling a fur coat, then there's full sales tax. There's different tax rates for different products, and it varies wildly across almost 10,000 different jurisdictions in the US.
And that "someone" should be whoever is requiring the tax to be collected. If such a process is too complicated or expensive for a state to offer, that should be the first clue that it's too complicated or expensive to require every single business across the country to implement.
We have used TaxCloud which handles computing and paying the sales tax. You have to set what type of product each item you sell is so they know how to calculate tax for that type of item where you're selling it
The ruling gives states the power to collect state taxes, but will states require out of state retailers to also collect and remit sales tax for each county, special tax districts, and cities?
It does not level the playing field if a non-local business must collect and remit sales taxes for thousands of jurisdictions while a local business must only collect and remit sales tax for their jurisdiction. It actually flips it completely around, burdening online business more than local business.
As a small business owner, the sales tax remittance is super annoying, it's so byzantine. They often refuse to let small businesses use automated submittal unless you have enough volume, and if you don't, you have to hand write out the forms and send in a check. Per jurisdiction. Separate forms for state+county, and city. I'd rather see the states take back the taxing authority of cities and counties, and dole out funding from the state sales tax revenue based on population.
So how is this going to work? Imagine you're a small online retailer and people from every state buy your stuff. Does that mean each state can send you a tax bill? Without knowing what you owe? And what if you ignore it? What recourse does the state (that you don't live in or don't own a business in) have? Seems like none or very little. Plus, the administrative burden could be quite large for any given state. And it's a crapshoot from the state's perspective, since the state has no idea which retailers are heavily used in their states. I wonder if the states will work together on collections and figuring that part out... Seems like in the short term small sellers will be ignored by the states and the large sellers will loose. Mid to long term -- who knows... Obviously, I'm guessing.
And another thing... The idea that the states are "losing out" on revenue seems like a very simplistic way to look at things to me. First, the states have undoubtably already adjusted their tax structure to get the revenue they want/need. Lots of things affect that and the states adjust all the time. The weather (literally) for instance. It's not like there's an unaccounted for shortfall.
Second, the retailers in question are always local to a given state and their online businesses contribute to their home state's revenue. If those businesses have the administrative burden of managing sales tax across fifty states they may contribute less to the given state's revenue. Or -- they raise prices.
I think it probably hurts people starting up the most as it effectively creates a lot more regulatory risk.
In any case, an economic drag as all bad regulation and regulatory uncertainty is. There's huge uncertainty here as who knows what/if congress will do. "Nothing" is a certitude for a few more months at least. Probably a few more years. Just long enough for it not to be worth creating a business around solving the problem.
[+] [-] kels|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] myrandomcomment|7 years ago|reply
"...South Dakota, whose law requires retailers with more than $100,000 in sales or 200 transactions annually in the state to pay a 4.5 percent tax on purchases"
"..Kennedy’s majority opinion strongly suggested the measure was constitutional, in part because it has the $100,000 threshold and doesn’t try to impose retroactive taxation."
A clear bar is set for what is covered here and what is a burden.
[+] [-] Animats|7 years ago|reply
[1] http://www.streamlinedsalestax.org/
[+] [-] DoctorOetker|7 years ago|reply
I think it's good to start harmonizing the sales taxes, but such a fee (if I understand you correctly) should be removed...
[+] [-] beberlei|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dragonwriter|7 years ago|reply
(1) very large organizations with retail over a wide area as a core business focus would handle relations with taxing jurisdictions directly as a central function.
(2) medium scale organizations would outsource tax compliance to specialized vendors that would handle it.
(3) very small organizations would either do the same as medium orgs (assuming vendors handle them) or just not sell into many jurisdictions.
[+] [-] gnopgnip|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomrod|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ggm|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Shivetya|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joezydeco|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] coldseattle|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cityhomesteader|7 years ago|reply
Strange huh? Seems like the little guy is being attacked by the elites in every manner possible. Whether it is small online sellers, small time youtubers, independent freelance journalists, small time artists, writers, etc, seems like the rules are being changed to favor corporations and the heavy hitters. Heck, even search and social media results/algorithms are changing to cater to corporations.
Odd that this story hasn't gotten that much traction anywhere either. You'd think something this important would be all over hacker news and social media. I remember Bezos used to be very vocal whenever internet tax issues came up. He's been awfully quiet. Oh that's right, amzn is no longer a small time book and music seller.
[+] [-] peter303|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rossdavidh|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rbritton|7 years ago|reply
Between this and similarly far-reaching laws (e.g., GDPR), it's becoming increasingly burdensome for small players to the point where secondary services like Avalara are effectively required.
[+] [-] inferiorhuman|7 years ago|reply
Sounds like a good justification for a federal GST instead of the patchwork of (hyper) local sales taxes. I fully understand why that will never happen in the United States (states' rights), and think that it's the tax patchwork that's the problem not the requirement to collect taxes itself.
[+] [-] panda888888|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jMyles|7 years ago|reply
So you're saying that these laws are achieving their intended purpose?
[+] [-] nkurz|7 years ago|reply
Most of the coverage I've seen downplays it, but it should be noted that the question is not whether tax is owed on these out-of-state internet purchases, but whether the retailer should be required to collect it and submit it to the state. Currently, the purchaser is (in 45 of 50 states) legally required to pay a "use tax", but most Americans (98%?) are blissfully unaware of this requirement, or have simply decided not to pay it. This is pure illegal tax evasion, based on the (correct) assumption that enforcement is lax and risk of punishment is low: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/04/16/177384487/most...
Rather than attempting to enforce these existing laws against their residents (unpopular and difficult), states believe it will be easier to get compliance from retailers. Until this decision, it was unconstitutional under the Commerce Clause for a state to demand this collection unless the retailer had a "substantial nexus" in the state, generally defined as a physical presence. Post-decision (pending new national laws created by Congress) all retailers are fair game. The particular South Dakota law in question has requirements as to volume of purchase, but this is not a principle of the decision.
Beyond the implications for internet retailers, this is an interesting counter-example to the Supreme Court tradition of "stare decisis" (to stand by things already decided). Apparently, everyone on the court agrees that earlier decisions that produced the physical location test were poor precedent. Usually, the court is very reluctant to revisit these decisions, but in this case, the majority justices decided to abandon precedent and explicitly call the earlier decisions mistakes. The dissenting justices, despite conceding that "Bellas Hess was wrongly decided", felt that the court was better off sticking with the flawed precedent than changing things up now.
Personally, whether or not this is good constitutional precedent, I think I agree with the dissenters that allowing local jurisdictions to make laws affecting far-away businesses who have no other local presense is going to lead to problems. Beyond just the burden of collecting confusing locally defined taxes, I fear about where else it leads. If a locality can enforce its local tax laws, what other custom crafted local laws can it enforce in return for access to customers? Can it require a business license? Should it be allowed to enforce its local environmental and labor standards as well? Is this a good thing?
[+] [-] mindslight|7 years ago|reply
A business collecting taxes for the state they are in, even for orders shipped out of state, would make sense. But the individual states seem unwilling to do this, as it would decrease their own businesses' advantage. And that's the whole point - we should welcome competition in tax rates, wherever it can possibly even be found.
Referencing New England was not arbitrary, as the ability to drive two states over to simply have dinner is a condition that holds the state governments to a modicum of honesty.
[+] [-] ghaff|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] taurath|7 years ago|reply
We are seeing in action the consolidation and corporatization of the internet, as regulators and laws catch up from the wild west days. This is how every industry goes, but start saying goodbye to startups as they've been for the last 15 years. Already its a better deal for most workers to just work at a bigco (and has been for a while).
Of course, this doesn't address whether internet sites should have to deal with state taxes (they probably should), but gosh everything is getting a heck of a lot more complicated.
[+] [-] rahimnathwani|7 years ago|reply
In each case, the seller (who has no physical or other presence in X) is required to collect tax from the buyer (a resident of X) and remit it to the tax authorities in X.
The tax is owed by a resident of X, to the tax authorities in X. But the tax authorities in X want someone outside X to collect it on their behalf.
EDIT: According to Wikipedia, some states charge sellers sales tax, and others do it the way I assumed (tax is charged to buyers, but collected by sellers).
[+] [-] gregrata|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sdhgaiojfsa|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mullingitover|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WillPostForFood|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ransom1538|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jcborro|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nickjj|7 years ago|reply
If you sell a few thousand digital goods (let's say video courses or ebooks) to people spread across 30 states in the US over the year, you will be responsible to collect sales tax and do the paperwork to pay each of those 30 states sales tax every quarter (or per year)?
When dealing with a low priced item, it's not difficult to accumulate a high number of transactions.
Not only are those fees a huge financial burden but I imagine the act of filing all of that is going to kill any motivation to do anything. For me, I'll end up either stop doing what I love (creating educational content to help other developers while making enough $ to live on) or move to a different country with a better tax system.
[+] [-] nlh|7 years ago|reply
> The vote was 5 to 4. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote the majority opinion and was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch.
I can't imagine we're gonna see RBG agreeing with the Alito/Gorsuch/Thomas clan too often.
[+] [-] jedberg|7 years ago|reply
That doesn't follow. The people being taxed are the people living in that state, and their representatives are enacting that tax. As usually Norquist is making up BS to scare people.
[+] [-] datamingle|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] txsh|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anonymous5133|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Symmetry|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hoveringcto|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] techsin101|7 years ago|reply
If you look at this matters with some attention you realize system works against poor...
Only income taxes are progressive. And Rich don't get richer because of their income.
Whether you're a trillion dollar company or about to make your first sale to pay rent you owe same amout of sales tax.
Wether you live in NYC and pay 3k in rent or live in Alaska you pay same federal income tax.
.... Wealth tax is way simpler... It let's govt tax wealth/income on its last form. Like a fraction in reduced form, or equation that's been simplified.
Easier to conduct business, easier to start business, easier to pay taxes, easier to be poor. Much much fair to all.
Capital tax is not same as wealth tax. In fact if you have wealth tax there is no need for capital tax.
I suggest 4% wealth tax and remove pretty much all other taxes.
If your wealth is 200 billion, first year you pay 8 billion. If your wealth is $5000 then you pay only.. $200, doesn't matter if you earned 400k. If you didn't accquire assets you spent it and some else have that now so they will pay it...if you bought stuff then your wealth isn't really 5k
[+] [-] windows_tips|7 years ago|reply
Anyone know where the Constitution talks about this $100,000 threshold?
>doesn’t try to impose retroactive taxation.
Similar to how it presumably not limiting what arms can be sold makes it 'constitutional'.
[+] [-] zchrykng|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] magduf|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gmiller123456|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Agathos|7 years ago|reply
I typed "avatax vs" in Google and it autocompleted "taxjar", so there's another I guess.
Yes it would be nice if the states made it easier.
[+] [-] rstupek|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mbesto|7 years ago|reply
https://www.taxjar.com/
https://www.avalara.com/
Lots of ERP's have it built in.
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] donatj|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cmurf|7 years ago|reply
It does not level the playing field if a non-local business must collect and remit sales taxes for thousands of jurisdictions while a local business must only collect and remit sales tax for their jurisdiction. It actually flips it completely around, burdening online business more than local business.
As a small business owner, the sales tax remittance is super annoying, it's so byzantine. They often refuse to let small businesses use automated submittal unless you have enough volume, and if you don't, you have to hand write out the forms and send in a check. Per jurisdiction. Separate forms for state+county, and city. I'd rather see the states take back the taxing authority of cities and counties, and dole out funding from the state sales tax revenue based on population.
[+] [-] methehack|7 years ago|reply
And another thing... The idea that the states are "losing out" on revenue seems like a very simplistic way to look at things to me. First, the states have undoubtably already adjusted their tax structure to get the revenue they want/need. Lots of things affect that and the states adjust all the time. The weather (literally) for instance. It's not like there's an unaccounted for shortfall.
Second, the retailers in question are always local to a given state and their online businesses contribute to their home state's revenue. If those businesses have the administrative burden of managing sales tax across fifty states they may contribute less to the given state's revenue. Or -- they raise prices.
I think it probably hurts people starting up the most as it effectively creates a lot more regulatory risk.
In any case, an economic drag as all bad regulation and regulatory uncertainty is. There's huge uncertainty here as who knows what/if congress will do. "Nothing" is a certitude for a few more months at least. Probably a few more years. Just long enough for it not to be worth creating a business around solving the problem.