BizRate.com Survey Reveals Online Buyers Would Make Fewer Purchases If Internet Sales Tax Imposed; Survey Finds Two-Thirds of Internet Shoppers Would Change Habits.Business Editors LOS LOS Length of stay, see there ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 20, 2000 Nearly two-thirds of online buyers said they would make fewer purchases from Internet merchants if they had to pay a sales tax sales tax, levy on the sale of goods or services, generally calculated as a percentage of the selling price, and sometimes called a purchase tax. It is usually collected in the form of an extra charge by the retailer, who remits the tax to the government. , according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. a Flash Survey(TM) conducted as part of a partnership between BizRate.com, the Internet's leading e-commerce rating site and marketing research firm, and the Association for Interactive Media (AIM), a leading voice for e-commerce and online activity. More than 25,000 online buyers participated in the latest point-of-sale survey designed specifically to gauge consumer buying behavior and awareness surrounding the controversial Internet sales tax issue. Conducted in mid-March, the study was the fourth in a series since June 1999. The latest findings will be introduced today at a meeting of the Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce (ACEC ACEC American Council of Engineering Companies (formerly American Consulting Engineers Council) ACEC American Consulting Engineers Council (now American Council of Engineering Companies) ) in Dallas. Previous survey results have also been a part of ACEC deliberations. "There's no question the tax issue will impact the future of e-commerce," said Chuck Davis  This article or section contains information about one or more candidates in an upcoming or ongoing election.Content may change as the election approaches. Charles E. , president and CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. of BizRate.com. "Our real-time data Real-time data denotes information that is delivered immediately after collection. There is no delay in the timeliness of the information provided. Some uses of this term confuse it with the term dynamic data. delivers consumer insights and crucial information to legislators and the industry as they deliberate the issue of e-commerce taxation." Findings from the Flash Survey series have consistently shown that age, gender and income would also be factors in online buyer behavior if a sales tax were instituted for Internet purchases. Relevant findings from the latest survey include: -- Twenty percent of online buyers reported paying a sales tax on recent Internet purchases. This represents a steady increase in the number of online buyers paying sales tax charges since the first BizRate.com/AIM survey in June 1999. At that time, 10 percent of online buyers reported paying an online sales tax. -- Approximately two-thirds of online buyers said that current state and local tax systems should be simplified. -- More men (65 percent) than women (57 percent) favor simplified local and state tax systems. -- Online buyers with higher incomes led lower income shoppers significantly in advocating simplified state and local tax systems. -- Experienced buyers (62 percent) led first-time buyers (55 percent) in favoring simplified state and local tax systems. Concerning the current state of tax systems, and Internet taxes Before these efforts could gain much headway, however, the United States Congress preempted virtually all conceivable forms of Internet taxation. The purpose of the 1998 Internet Tax Freedom Act was to nip in the bud these incipient taxation efforts. specifically, survey findings showed that: -- Twenty percent of online buyers reported paying a sales tax on recent Internet purchases. This represents a steady increase in the number of online buyers paying sales tax charges since the first BizRate.com/AIM survey in June 1999. At that time, 10 percent of online buyers reported paying an online sales tax. -- Approximately two-thirds of online buyers said that current state and local tax systems should be simplified. -- More men (65 percent) than women (57 percent) favor simplified local and state tax systems. -- Online buyers with higher incomes led lower income shoppers significantly in advocating simplified state and local tax systems. -- Experienced buyers (62 percent) led first-time buyers (55 percent) in favoring simplified state and local tax systems. "The BizRate.com data clearly shows that consumers are tax conscious and are turning to lawmakers to simplify the current sales tax system," said Ben Isaccson, executive director for AIM. "With a new millennium upon us, the time is now for the U.S. states A U.S. state is any one of the fifty subnational entities of the United States, although four states use the official title "commonwealth". The separate state governments and the federal government share sovereignty, in that an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and and localities to simplify their systems and remove the burdens e-commerce merchants currently face." About BizRate.com Founded in 1996, BizRate.com (http://www.bizrate.com) is an open and comprehensive marketplace, governed by customer ratings, leading millions of online buyers to thousands of quality online merchants each month. As a trusted market-maker, BizRate.com combines valuable customer-generated information with a powerful set of shopping tools to help online shoppers confidently and easily decide where to buy online. BizRate.com's proprietary customer ratings form the backbone of the marketplace and are derived from its position as the only company trusted by more than 3,600 online stores to collect direct customer feedback and transactional information at the point of every purchase. These ratings, widely recognized as the standard for customer satisfaction on the Web, are the only statistically rigorous way of differentiating retailers on "quality of service" metrics metrics Managed care A popular term for standards by which the quality of a product, service, or outcome of a particular form of Pt management is evaluated. See TQM. , allowing consumers to take the focus away from pure price comparisons. In addition to on its site, BizRate.com's ratings also appear on Consumer Reports Online and in Consumer Reports magazine, as well as on Microsoft Network See MSN. Microsoft Network - The Microsoft Network , AltaVista, GO Network, Go2Net, Snap, Citibank, iChoose, Brodia, Dealtime and CNET (body) CNET - Centre national d'Etudes des Telecommunications. The French national telecommunications research centre at Lannion. . |
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