Free Republic

Online shoppers could find costs going up after the Supreme Court did away Thursday with a decades-old precedent limiting the ability of states to collect sales tax on certain out-of-state Internet purchases. The 5-4 ruling called the current rules “unsound and incorrect.”

In fairly short order, the Supreme Court is going to begin hearing arguments in the case of South Dakota v. Wayfair Inc. This case is being closely watched around the country because of the potential impact it will have on consumers as well as retailers, both traditional and online. The state of South Dakota is asking the Supremes to overrule their 1992 decision in Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, which held that states could not force online retailers to collect sales tax in other states where the company didn’t have a physical presence.Now the White House has weighed in on...

Proposed Internet sales-tax legislation received a huge boost on Monday when the White House officially backed the bill, saying it would level the playing field among online and retail stores by ensuring that both pay sales taxes. “Today, while local small-business retailers follow the law and collect sales taxes from customers who make purchases in their stores, many big-business online and catalogue retailers do not collect the same taxes,” White House press secretary Jay Carney. “This puts local, neighborhood-based small businesses at a disadvantage to big, out-of-state, online companies.”Now, the Senate is scheduled to debate the Internet sales-tax legislation for...

JEFFERSON CITY — Missouri Republican Roy Blunt  said he is one of several U.S. senators sponsoring legislation that he hopes will help level the taxes paid by traditional stores and online retailers.