|
|
||
Bill in Congress would help states collect Internet sales taxes Date published: 7/17/2010
BY CHELYEN DAVIS
There is an estimated $23 billion in uncollected state sales taxes out there, lost to online purchases from retailers who don't collect it and buyers who don't voluntarily pay it to the state. State governments, many of which are cash-strapped in this economy, hope a new bill in Congress will help them collect. Rep. Bill Delahunt, D-Mass., introduced the bill July 1, calling it the Main Street Fairness Act. According to the National Council of State Legislatures, which supports the bill, it provides a mechanism for states to collect sales tax on purchases made from Internet retailers that don't have a physical presence in the state, such as Amazon or eBay. Currently, you're supposed to send the state the tax on your Internet purchases, but few people do, and there's little the state can do to make you. Not surprisingly, states would like to collect that money, and bricks-and-mortar stores, which do have to collect and remit sales taxes, also support making it easier to tax Internet purchases. Delahunt's bill essentially gives Congress' blessing to the Streamlined Sales Tax Project, a group of states (about 20 so far) working to make their sales-tax laws more uniform and easier to understand. Those states could, under the provisions of the bill, tax sales without regard to where the seller is located. Earlier this year, Virginia state Sen. Emmett Hanger, R-Augusta, introduced a bill in the General Assembly that would have required Internet retailers doing business in Virginia to collect the sales tax. It passed the state Senate but was tabled in a House committee. Hanger has also pushed for Virginia to fully join the Streamlined Sales Tax Project. Hearings on Hanger's bill drew several owners of smaller retail shops around Virginia who said they're at a disadvantage against large out-of-state Internet retailers, since they always have to charge sales tax. But there were also people who testified that if Internet retailers stopped doing business in the state over the issue, their businesses would be hurt. Amazon, for example, partners with retailers to sell items on the Internet, and the retailers could lose the benefit of that partnership if Amazon ended affiliate relationships in the state--as it has done in North Carolina over the same issue. EBay opposes Delahunt's bill, posting a statement on its website saying the bill would "impose significant new costs on hundreds Hanger supports Delahunt's bill, although he said Virginia will still need to conform its own laws if a federal law is enacted. "I'm pleased that the federal government, now they're looking at the issue and trying to move some legislation. There's just a lot of inequity with it," he said. Chelyen Davis: 540/368-5028
I agree with the proposed legislation. This is not a new tax.
The Main Street Fairness Act is simply modernizing the law
to catch up with the reality that so much business is now
done online. Technology makes is easy for anyone to
open a Web business, manage inventories, use target
marketing, calculate shipping etc. Technology has solved
this problem also. There are services available that comply
with the Streamlined Sales Tax agreement, at no cost to
the merchants.
Ever since the internet emerged as a way for entrepreneurs to sell their products/services directly to the consumer, our taxaholic government (state and federal) has been in a conniption over it. They (bureaucrats) have shown an inability and unwillingness to live within their means regardless of how much money comes their way. This will only make it easier for them to waste more money, and cripple internet-based businesses of all sizes in the process.
any sales tax on internet only sales except greedy pols wanting more revenue to waste on pork and $500 signs showcasing another obama stimulus road-widening project on a low volume country road?
Neither the state nor the feds have any expense associated with that sale, nor any role in making it happen. Just another drag on free enetrprise.
of 50 different states approach to what boils down to as
issues that transcend state lines. there are some things that
need to be done at the Fed level.
It should be a level playing field for taxes for sales between
bricks & mortar and online but it would be easy for a bill to
exempt small volume mom&pops ....
Online has an Achilles heel and it is shipping costs.
Walmart can throw your item on a scheduled 18-wheeler
much cheaper than the item can be UPS/Fed Exed.
If it were set up that the home state of the business would get the sales tax, then no problem. Just like if I am on vacation and make a purchase. If they set it up the way it is proposed, it will kill most mom and pop internet sites. There is no way these smaller businesses can keep up with 50 different state laws on sales tax, and submit 50 different forms.
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||
