Since collection of sales tax on on-line purchases to be delivered to many jurisdictions became mandatory I've been paying attention, and I've found several instances of erroneous collections:

• eBay charges NYS residents tax on non-taxable pharmaceutical items.
• Jockey charges NYS residents tax on shipping charges on non-taxable items, i.e. everything they sell.
• Walgreens charges NYS residents tax on shipping charges on non-taxable pharmaceutical items.

And I'm sure that those few companies are nowhere near unique in their misunderstanding of the laws with which they're newly obligated to deal.

I therefore recommend that everybody familiarize themselves with their local sales tax laws, wherever they live, and, even though it may not be for big bucks, be an activist when they'e overcharged.

I think I may have finally gotten through to eBay (after MANY phone calls), but I'm not holding my breath.

It seems to me that the concept of "gigo" has faded away into total obscurity, and computer users now readily accept any and all output as gospel.

My favorite story is about a local shopkeeper's son, about 14-15 years old, who was working the register in his father's store. I bought something for $1.50, and gave him two $1 bills, and he punched $20.00 into the register and gave me $18.50 change. When I questioned him, he replied "The computer said."

SCARY!!!

More: I don't know if it's still happening, because eBay doesn't send me the pertinent emails any more, but at the outset, the NY sales tax they were incorrectly collecting from me was being remitted to the State of Washington.

I don't know if your story is a computer story or the failure of modern education to instill critical thinking and reasoning (or both). It is tantamount to the students who think 4.12 is bigger than 4.2 (12 is more than 2). And may be the reason McDonald's cash registers have pictures of the items on the keys, instead of numbers, and even uses pictures of two or three items rather than pushing the single item key two or three times.

Why should this surprise you when the President of the United States does not know Puerto Ricans are United States citizens, the Kansas City Chiefs play in Kansas City, Missouri, or the difference between the second article and second amendment to the Constitution of the United States?

For what it is worth, I was in a Cocina the other evening and their 7 year old daughter added up the meal I had eaten, including the sales tax, and very professionally counted out the change to my $20 bill while her 13 year old sister stood by quietly supervising the transaction. The 10 year old daughter was seated at a corner table diligently studying her homework. But then their grandparents had all been immigrants from South of the border.

And that, quite definitively, says it all.
If the Mad Hatter gets re-elected this year, the nation's mental stagnation and moral morass will take at least another generation to extirpate.

I should have added that all three of the girls were dressed in parochial school uniforms. The public schools are hampered by the mandate to "teach to the test" that focuses entirely on facts with no regard or reward for analysis or original thought. So as much as I decry Betsy DeVoss' animosity toward public education it is encouraging parents who care about their child's education to put them into private schools that are able to focus on education and not THE TEST. But that is another rant

Very often parents who put their children in private schools hire for their children private tutors to teach to the test. It is quite rampant here in California and has motivated the University of California system to eliminate (over the next 9 years) the SAT and ACT as entrance requirements. Of course they will replace them with their own institutional exam that will be "better".

Private firms that tutor THE TEST are big business nation wide, but the SAT and ACT were already discredited long before their arrival on the scene. The fact is neither has ever been a reliable predictor of academic performance, but they were successfully marketed to overworked and too often browbeaten college admissions officers as a tool for justifying their decisions. Like THE. TEST they were an attempt to quantity an extremely complex matter using very simplistic methodologies.

Based on years of experience as an instructor at the undergraduate and graduate university level I would put far more weight on cultural background, and immigration status, as predictors of academic performance than the ability to pass a given test. As a practical matter I too often saw students dropping out of my classes because there were "too many _______" (fill in the blank with the cultural background of your choice, there are any number of options) because "they will set the curve too high."

Correction: After not having looked in a while, I just took a fresh look and found that Jockey has corrected its sales tax collection policy.

I don't think any system of education is or ever was capable of teaching common sense; you've either got it or you haven't.

But computers have exacerbated lack of common sense by providing an easy "the computer said" means to avoid personal responsibility.

Walgreens didn't have the courtesy to respond to my emails, but they have stopped collecting tax erroneously.