People love buying online and one reason is the freedom from sales tax. Looks like things are about to change and soon we will be telling our children and grandchildren of the “good old days” when there were no taxes online.

Tax-hungry politicians are attempting to force Amazon.com to collect sales taxes from people that reside out of the state. If this really happens, Amazon.com is only the beginning and all other online retailers will have to follow suit. People then will only be left with fond memories of days when it was easy to order items over the internet without having to pay any sales taxes.

Currently, if someone residing in California orders an item from Amazon.com, which is based in Seattle, there is no sales tax charged at the time of the purchase. The reason is because Amazon has no offices in California. There is a long-standing rule that says a retailer must have a physical presence to be able to collect taxes.

However, politicians who are pro sales taxes are trying to find ways to circumvent this rule and New York State has recently succeeded in getting an approval by legislators that says Amazon and other online retailers that have no physical presence in the state, should collect sales tax on purchases made by New Yorkers.

Amazon is not willing to take this lying down and is all set for a legal battle, and as a first step has sued the State of New York. It challenged the new statute by filing a complaint in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, that the new law was vague, unconstitutional, and too broad. (more…)

Who would have thought the day would come when playing a video game can prove to be harmful? Along with technological advancement, the video game culture underwent a huge change, with violence and sex making its way even into the video game arena. There are many types of video games, each with its own distinctive content. The rating for these games is done by the Entertainment System Rating Board (ESRB) to give information about the content of the games, for buyers to decide whether it is meant for children or for adults.

The ESRB uses rating symbols, such as EC (early childhood,) E (everyone,) M (Mature) and many others as well as several descriptors to describe what is in a game. Some descriptors are - animated blood that means depiction of discolored blood, which does not look real; blood depicts normal blood; violence refers to conflicts that are aggressive in nature; sexual violence depicts violent sexual acts such as rape. These are just some of the descriptors and there are many more that are used to describe comic, humor, gambling, drugs, language, mature humor etc.

Parents of small children usually look at these ratings to see what sort of games their kids are playing and keep a check on them, as well as to ensure they do not play games that are violent or sexually inclined, at a young and impressionable age. (more…)