What Do You Think About Louisiana Passing A Law Banning Cash Sales Of Second Hand Goods?

[Georg]

Some court/courts will decide whether or not the law can stand. Until that happens, I wonder about the motivation for the law. Tracking stolen goods could be one motive. Assuring that sales tax is collected could be another motive. And assuring that the second hand dealer keeps records and pays income taxes could be a third. I remember an interview with a CNN reporter in Louisiana after the oil spill, when residents were complaining they were not getting reimbursed for lost income. One woman representing a family of fishermen said 'they are only looking at income tax returns' and 'sometimes you deliver seafood to restaurants and have the windows rolled down......you make out a ticket for the sale and it blows out the window'. In other words, they were doing what an unknown number of people who are self-employed do: collect a dollar for the government, a dollar for me, another dollar for the government.........you get the picture.   charlie95 26 months ago

[Scanlan]

You wrote: "You brought the Republicans and democrats into this not me."Naughty naughty. That's not really true now is it?   Max20characters 26 months ago

[Olney]

To Poppet: Pawn Shops are NOT affected by this bill.   Max20characters 26 months ago

[Dany]

Except if you actually read the law, I don't think that's what it says or does. http://www.mygov365.com/legislation/view/id/4db66f7549e51bd334be0300/tab/versions/The law says that if you buy and sell used merchandise more than once a month, and pay cash for an item over $25, you have to get a statement from the seller that he owns the property he's selling, and some proof that he is who he says he is, and maintain a record of that proof. Page 5, Line 26. I'm not so sure what's unreasonable about that. If I'm a buyer, it protects me from buying stolen goods. If I'm a seller, it guarantees my customers that they are not purchasing stolen goods. As times get harder, police are seeing a lot more fencing going on. They're also seeing a real uptick in people who are dismantling public property for scrap metal. Hopefully this will keep that stuff out of the legitimate marketplace and protect consumers.   @Goldie 26 months ago http://www.mygov365.com/legislation/view/id/4db66f7549e51bd334be0300/tab/versions/

[melville]

I would suspect the law is favored by big business. Bobby Jindal is a puppet of big business and because big business is not small business. The large corporations that make a real lobbying dent do not want people buying second hand stuff - they want people to buy the new products they make in China. If we all recycled, it would cut into their profits.Perhaps Facing South will provide more information in future articles of their new letter. It requires some investigative journalism.http://www.southernstudies.org/   Max20characters 26 months ago http://www.southernstudies.org/

[Curran]

It has to be unconstitutional. The dollar bill is legal tender for all debts, public and private.A merchant can decide not to accept cash - that's their choice. But I don't see how the state can legally mandate that and not eviscerate the constitution.   ElBanditoRoso 26 months ago

[jorel]

This is another of the knee-jerk laws created--and I don't care what party came up with it or who supported it. I can understand where they are coming from--they want to be able to document possible illegal transactions. But they took it to the extreme without realizing the full impact of their decision. Here in Michigan there was the same concern years ago. They now require those who run pawn stores to log/document every transaction they do. Those logs are submitted and the police are allowed to look them over to see if there are any known stolen items on them. So much easier than ruining multitudes of businesses! Put the responsibility on those who are the problem, not everyone.   Poppet! 26 months ago