Posted on 05/07/2013 4:00:28 PM PDT by jazusamo
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Tuesday that he likely couldn’t support the online sales tax bill that the Senate passed this week, underscoring the challenge that supporters face in getting the measure through the lower chamber.
Boehner told Bloomberg Television that the Marketplace Fairness Act, which got 69 votes in the Senate on Monday, would heap a “big burden on some very small businesses.”
"I just think that moving this bill where you have 50 different sales tax codes, it is a mess out there,” Boehner said. “You are going to make it much more difficult for online businesses to be able to comply with it.”
The Speaker, in his most dismissive comments yet on the bill, also said “probably not” when specifically asked if he could support it, and noted once more that the bill would have to go through the House Judiciary Committee, where Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) has outlined an extensive list of concerns about the bill.
Proponents of the online sales tax bill – including big box stores like Wal-Mart, the online giant Amazon and state governments – have said that they had momentum following the lopsided Senate vote, and that a bill could even get to President Obama’s desk this year.
The Marketplace Fairness Act, those groups say, would merely close a loophole exploited by online businesses, and could give states billions in needed extra revenue each year.
The bill would allow states to collect sales tax revenue whenever a resident made an online purchase from a U.S. retailer. Currently, states can only collect from businesses that have a physical location in that state.
But opponents of the group – including prominent small government organizations like Heritage Action and Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform – have long said that the measure would have a tougher time in the House. Those groups say the bill would open up online retailers to audits, and should be viewed as a tax increase on consumers.
Customers are generally supposed to report taxes from online purchases to their states, but rarely do.
Here’s what grinds my gears about this. All the commies are blathering on about “fairness”. Well a mom ‘n pop brick ‘n mortar store doesn’t have to hire an accounting team to manage all the various state and local sales taxes of their customers. Generally it’s just the state in which they are located and perhaps the town if it’s sucky like NYC or Armpit, NJ.
I see the ENDGAME in all of this....
Once Mom and Pops start suffering Big Dim government will step IN and assign a Government Beer-O-Crap to every single small business that has their salaries paid with Tax Monies. They will report to work each day and have TOTAL AUTHORITY over each business they “Help” but it will be sold as “Helping out the small businesses with their regulation and tax paperwork”.
It will be or lead to the de-facto nationalisation of all Small and Medium Sized businesses....
I hate to say this, but if they simply set the Internet sales tax rate at some number, maybe 6%, they could pass it tomorrow. Everyone would know what to charge and who to send it to (i.e., the 57 state capitals).
You’re probably right, but that turkey in the WH would be getting sales tax from 7 states and I’m not going for that:)
Heh. The liberals are against it, too.
At least the average Democrat is.
I think maybe Boehner’s just downplaying it. I believe the House will sink this bill.
boner’s best == “probably can’t support”
way to stand for not hammering the awesome economy, boner.
Online retailers already have to increase their prices to pay for shipping. Shoppers are legally obligated to pay their state’s sales tax on items they purchase online. Perhaps the states should look into recovering their “lost revenue” via the shoppers rather than creating another inefficient bureaucracy. How many jurisdictions have the authority to impose sales taxes? —9,000? What a compliance mess!
Too many “Republicans” are willing to join the tax and spend Democrats. Seems very easy for them to forget any promises they made to get elected.
Increasing the bureaucracy and increasing taxes is the easy way to continue to tax and spend, in my opinion. This is not a zero sum game! Expected revenues will not come rolling in; but another piece of our fragile economy will be damaged or wrecked by the Marketplace Fairness Act.
Well said. Here in WA state we have laws that require us to pay sales tax on items we purchase in another state, whether from a business on the street or from a catalog or an Internet purchase.
It is not right for a state or the feds to require any business owner to be responsible for collecting sales taxes for them for buyers in 49 other states.
50 different taxes?
Try 9000.
Many states have multiple rates, depending on the products. And tax districts at the local and county levels would be demanding their ‘fair’ share.
It would be a nightmare for small businesses.
You’re correct...Here in WA state the sales tax rates vary by county and city, it would be a nightmare for sure.
Phrases like this show that it is the woefully ignorant low-info voters who are the real targets.
A loophole is the firing point in which a defender could kill or wound a rapacious aggressor. Given the correct definition we need more, not less loopholes against rapacious, insatiable government.
Sadly, the fundamental "loophole" being undermined by the sworn-to-protect-the-Constitution US Senate and their crony capitalist money men is the Constitution itself. The SCOTUS ruled that cross-border taxation of businesses without a physical presence in the state is unConstitutional. That would require an Amendment or a new SCOTUS ruling to overturn, no?
What in the new bill makes it Constitutional? We need to get every schoolchild a copy of Bastiat's The Law. The purpose of the law is to preserve life and property, not to steal it.
Right!
What’s the “probably”?
I suppose then I “probably” can’t support Boner either.
That’s the way I see it, SCOTUS has ruled and a Constitutional amendment is needed to change it.
Translation: He’ll support it eventually.
I don’t trust that pile of #@!$% as far as I can throw him.
Doubt it.
The states have been screaming for over ten years about the lost tax money. Some Illinois are demanding the the Fedgov PAY THEM for the lost taxes.
Man the auto correct on my phone sucks.
“Some in Illinois are demandging”
business no longer needs governments.
governments need business.
the dc effets are under the “you did not build that” delusion.
it offshores every single internet business. There is MORE incentive to buy outside the usa than in the usa.
DC has no clue how business works.
running a printing press is not knowledge of business.
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