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Massachusetts residents may have to pay sales tax on items ordered on the internet, although officials involved in the decision say nothing definite will be decided in the immediate future. A law signed by Gov. Mitt Romney last month includes the state in the Streamlined Sales Tax Project, a group founded in March 2000 that discusses common problems with collecting sales tax, including those from internet sales, according to Tim Connolly, communications director for the Mass. Dept. of Revenue. The department will represent the state at the meetings, beginning with one held in Indianapolis on May 19 and 20. “What...

Vanity question I have regarding the taxes paid on Internet shopping. Is it standard practice for a company to tax the shipping and handling charges? The reason I'm asking I just ordered something online and the company charged my taxes based on the amount that included the shipping and handling.

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- The Senate on Thursday night approved a seven-year extension of a moratorium on state and local taxes on Internet access. The Senate voice vote came a little over a week after the House passed a bill calling for a four-year moratorium. The tax ban, first approved in 1998, is set to expire Nov. 1. Attempts in both the House and Senate to make the ban permanent in recent weeks were unsuccessful despite strong support for the idea.

WASHINGTON (AP) ―- The House on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a four-year extension of a moratorium on state and local taxes on Internet access, despite widespread support in both parties for a permanent ban. The tax ban, first passed in 1998, is set to expire on Nov. 1. The extension exempts some states that approved taxes prior to the original enactment. The vote was 405-2. "This bill is pro consumer, pro innovation and pro technology," said Rep. Mel Watt, D-N.C., one of the bill's sponsors. The bill to extend the tax break fell short of the permanent exemption that many lawmakers...

WASHINGTON - The House on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a four-year extension of a moratorium on state and local taxes on Internet access, despite widespread support in both parties for a permanent ban. The tax ban, first passed in 1998, is set to expire on Nov. 1. The extension exempts some states that approved taxes prior to the original enactment. The vote was 405-2. "This bill is pro consumer, pro innovation and pro technology," said Rep. Mel Watt, D-N.C., one of the bill's sponsors. The bill to extend the tax break fell short of the permanent exemption that many lawmakers favor....

WASHINGTON— The Justice Department said today that Internet service providers should be allowed to charge a fee for priority Web traffic. The agency told the Federal Communications Commission, which is reviewing high-speed Internet practices, that it is opposed to "Net neutrality," the principle that all Internet sites should be equally accessible to any Web user. Several phone and cable companies, such as AT&T Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and Comcast Corp., have previously said they want the option to charge some users more money for loading certain content or Web sites faster than others. The Justice Department said imposing a Net...

Is the Web Tax Man Getting Closer? Signs point toward action on the long-delayed issue of collecting online taxes by Jim Milliot -- Publishers Weekly, 6/18/2007 Ever since Amazon first began selling books online, bricks-and-mortar stores have maintained that the e-tailer had an unfair economic edge since it was not required to collect sales tax in states where it has no presence. But with Amazon's rapid growth, booksellers began arguing, as far back as nine years ago, that Amazon had a legal “nexus” in most states and should be obligated to collect tax, a position Amazon has firmly and...

    Proposed Internet TaxesProspective legislation for mandatory out-of-state sales taxes could impact your trading on eBay by requiring you to collect and remit sales tax on all items sold outside your home state. Last year, eBay sellers helped fight for "Net Neutrality," but the newly elected Congress brings new challenges.   Streamlined Sales Tax Project eBay opposes raising taxes on the Internet or its uses, as well as any attempt to impose remote sales tax collection burdens on the smallest sellers who can least afford it. This is certainly not the time to impose a major new tax burden...

Beginning this week, New Jersey residents purchasing music and videos from services like Apple's iTunes and rival digital downloads e-tailers encountered something they'd previously only found at bricks-and-mortar counterparts: a sales tax. Democratic Governor Jon Corzine proposed the sales tax expansion earlier this spring to help the state to recover from a $4.5 billion budget deficit, an ABC News affiliate in New York reported recently on its Web site. The changes, along with a sales tax rate hike from 6 to 7 percent, took effect on Oct. 1. According to a CNET News.com special report completed in April, 15 states...

Records from online vendors will help the state target buyers who didn't pay levy. California consumers and retailers who thought they had dodged sales and excise taxes when they bought cigarettes from out-of-state Internet and mail-order vendors are about to get smoked out. As part of a sweeping effort to crack down on such purchases, the state Board of Equalization has obtained 450,000 invoices from out-of-state Internet tobacco sellers showing untaxed sales to California residents over the past three years. It also has secured another 65,000 shipping records showing deliveries of 250,000 packages of untaxed cigarettes to Golden State residents...

TRENTON, N.J. -- The budget dispute that closed New Jersey's government and threatens to shutter Atlantic City casinos centers on the governor's plan to increase the state sales tax. He says a 1-cent increase will earn New Jersey $1.1 billion. Lawmakers, fearing a voter backlash, either don't want to raise taxes, or want to use some of the revenue for other spending. But more than half of the money Gov. Jon S. Corzine wants to raise by increasing the tax is already owed to the state. And no one is collecting it. State estimates show New Jersey loses about $600...

WASHINGTON--Broadband providers and Internet phone companies will have to pick up the tab for the cost of building in mandatory wiretap access for police surveillance, federal regulators ruled Wednesday. The Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously to levy what likely will amount to wiretapping taxes on companies, municipalities and universities, saying it would create an incentive for them to keep costs down and that it was necessary to fight the war on terror. Universities have estimated their cost to be about $7 billion. "The first obligation is...the safety of the people," said FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, a Democrat. "This commission supports...

WASHINGTON--More Americans would be forced to pay taxes subsidizing broadband service in "unserved" locales, and cities would be free to go into the Wi-Fi business under an upcoming U.S. Senate bill. Later this week, Sen. Gordon Smith, an Oregon Republican, plans to introduce a legislative package called the Broadband for America Act of 2006, he said Tuesday morning at a conference here hosted by the National Telecommunications CooperativeAssociation, which represents small and rural carriers. Net taxes on the way? Sen. Gordon Smith's proposal would force Americans to pay more to log in. Here's why: Currently telephone companies are forced to...

Chief Assistant Corporation Counsel Wes Hanscom told a City Council panel that City Hall is preparing to sue ticket resellers who make a killing on the Internet but leave taxpayers in the lurch. The crackdown can't come soon enough for Finance Committee Chairman Edward M. Burke (14th). He believes that as much as $16 million in amusement taxes is slipping through the city's fingers because of growing Internet purchases. $4.2 mil. loss on Sox postseason? "One registered ticket broker paid $140,000 in amusement tax on White Sox postseason. EBay, it is estimated, is 20 times the size of that broker....

States Expanding Push for Internet Taxes August 31, 2005 1:42PM "Taxes that it was difficult to collect before will now be collected. And consumers will pay that," said David Quam at the National Governors Association, helping lead the five-year effort that brought together state revenue officials, legislators and business leaders. Going online to buy the latest bestseller or those photos from summer vacation may be tax free for most people today, but it won't last forever. Come this fall, 13 states will start encouraging -- though not demanding -- that online businesses collect sales taxes just as Main Street stores...

A new federal proposal that would levy stiff taxes on Internet pornographers violates constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression, legal scholars say. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, an Arkansas Democrat, characterized her bill introduced last week as a way to make the Internet a "safer place" for children. The bill would impose a 25 percent tax on the revenue of most adult-themed Web sites. "Many adult-oriented Web sites in today's online world are not only failing to keep products unsuitable for children from view, but are also pushing those products in children's faces," Lincoln said. "And it's time that we stand up...

WASHINGTON -- A Democratic lawmaker is planning to propose a new 25 percent federal tax on Internet pornography and new requirements for adult Web sites to help prevent children from looking at them. The bill, expected to be introduced next week by Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., would impose the excise tax on transactions with for-profit adult Web sites, which typically sell monthly subscriptions to Internet users to look at pornographic photographs or videos.

The Internet sales tax issue may have reached the tipping point when 18 state tax collectors agreed upon an interstate set of sales tax rules. The tipping point, however, is still a long way from reality. Meeting in Chicago last week, the Streamlined Sales Tax Project (SSTP) took its most significant step to date to implement the collection of sales taxes on online purchases, a potential $20 billion-a-year bonanza for cash-strapped states. To bring those funds closer to state and local coffers, the SSTP officially admitted 18 states as members of the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement's (SSUTA) governing...

The arrival of April 15 doesn't mean your tax worries are over. You may owe more than you think. Online purchases from sites like Amazon.com and eBay may seem to arrive tax-free. Strictly speaking, however, purchasers are required to pay their own state's sales tax rate--the concept is called a "use tax"--and then voluntarily report the amount owed at tax time. Few do. That situation worries state tax agencies, which have long complained about individuals not volunteering how much use tax they owe from mail-order sales. The ballooning popularity of online purchases is making a bad situation worse, state officials...

Internet overseeing organisation ICANN has imposed what amounts to a $2 tax on all new domains. The organisation has just announced the launch of two new top-level domains (like .com or .org) in the form of .travel and .jobs, but the registry agreement reveals that it has put a $2 per transaction charge on every domain the companies sell or renew - in effect an internet tax. The news will be greeted with some dismay by other internet companies, already smarting over ICANN's earlier plans to introduce just a 25-cent charge. It is now quite clear that ICANN's intention is...