Push for online sales taxes picks up steam in Congress

U.S. states could collect millions of dollars in online sales taxes, with members of both parties in Congress sponsoring legislation Thursday that would resolve states' decades-long struggle to tax businesses beyond their borders.

"Small businesses and states alike are suffering from the inability to collect due — not new — taxes from purchases made online," said Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., adding the legislation is a "bipartisan, bicameral, common-sense solution that promotes states' rights and levels the playing field for our Main Street businesses."

Legislation on the Amazon tax, named for the colossal Internet retailer, has languished for years. ..... < snip >

..... The bills introduced on Thursday reconcile differences in legislation that the House of Representatives and Senate considered last year. The nearly identical details in the bills and strong bipartisan support mean the final bill could be sent to President Barack Obama this year.

Members of Congress recently assured state lawmakers they would pass a law in 2013.

In the last decade, Internet sales have gone from 1.6 percent of all U.S. retail sales to more than 5 percent, according to Commerce Department data, a proportion that will likely grow as shoppers make more purchases on handheld devices. In the third quarter of 2012, "e-commerce" sales were $57 billion, the department said.

Large Internet retailers are worried the tax could drive up the cost of doing business. They would also have to create new systems and software to collect the surcharges, adding to their costs. Amazon said in July it prefers having the tax issue resolved at the federal level.

When the 2007-09 recession caused states' revenues to collapse, Republican and Democratic governors backed the tax as a financial solution that would not require federal aid. ..... < snip >

This is gaining momentum, and this is the year to do it, Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), the lead Senate sponsor, said during a Capitol Hill press conference.

John Boozman from Arkansas, Bob Corker and Lamar! of Tennessee and Enzi from Wyoming are the 4 Republican Senate co-sponsors. ... That is 7.2% of the GOP delegation and they are all benchwarmers, not one of these dweebs chairs a committee

Thanks for the update. A few names on the list are surprising but most are from the states that have "WalMart"-sized constituents or are broke and want businesses from other states be their tax-collectors (with all the empowered state tax bureaucracy and courts that it usually entails).

When I am in another state and buy something from the store, nobody is asking me which state and city I am from to collect the sales tax and send it to that state sales tax/revenue agency)

The reason it's more worrisome this time than in previous times is that now Amazon is interested in multi-state "simplification" (because Amazon is quickly becoming b-a-m via their "affiliates' and expansion of warehousing/distribution centers in many states where they want to expedite and lower the cost of deliveries, to compete with smaller e-tailers and big-box stores) and this bill supposedly addresses "several proposals from the last Congress and includes revisions aimed at winning over skeptics."

Hopefully it will not go anywhere this time as well, because so many Republicans who are "local" small-business owners are confused by and don't see beyond the phony "fairness" issue and misunderstand the nature of this bill and how it will actually hurt them (instead of providing "competitiveness") as well as millions of other businesses and customers.

From interview with the co-founder of Reddit and other ventures (he also actively worked to kill SOPA and PIPA):
The Start-up Guy: Alexis Ohanian - CEA Vision, by Cindy Stevens, 2013 January 06

< snip > ..... Growing up, my father started his own travel agency just before the dot-com boom, and that undoubtedly had an impact on me. It made such an audacious-sounding thing as working for oneself seem possible. I'll also point out that unlike other business people you may have heard of, when world-changing technology like the Internet came along and disrupted his industry, my dad didn't start lobbying Washington, D.C., to pass laws to preserve outdated business models — he adapted his business and survived the huge shift to online travel agencies. ..... < snip >
Can you talk about your bus tour for a free Internet?
The Internet 2012 bus tour was a crowd funded, political-style campaign bus tour, only we were promoting Internet freedom. The bus was literally half red and half blue to show how bipartisan this issue is, with support coming from all Americans. We brought along a half dozen press and a documentary crew to show off just how important this issue is to Americans from Denver to Danville, Ky. The heartland of America is full of startup founders and farmers, students and artists, who all count on the open Internet to do what they do and will fight for it.
Erik Martin (reddit's GM) and I wanted to dispel the myth that it's a fight between Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Innovation and job creation is happening all across this country thanks to the Internet. Without a free Internet, not only do we stifle today's job creators, but also generations more who would never even get the chance to begin. ..... < snip >

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