Free Republic

Owens to testify in Congress against proposed national system Despite the state budget crisis, Gov. Bill Owens will testify Wednesday in Congress against a bill that would let states collect billions in new Internet sales taxes. The legislation, introduced last week by Rep. Ernest Istook, R-Okla., would allow states to implement a unified taxation system for collecting taxes on sales by Internet, phone or catalog. Owens, who will testify before the Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, has expressed his opposition to Internet taxes for years. But the pressure to impose them has built nationally...

<p>State Controller Steve Westly said Thursday that he has been asked by Gov. Gray Davis to develop new Internet tax policies.</p> <p>Westly told valley business leaders he envisions changes that will probably mean more widespread sales taxes on online purchases and possibly surcharges on Internet access and software downloads.</p>

By Reuters November 12, 2002, 5:35 PM PT More than 30 U.S. states approved a pact Tuesday that represents a major step toward creating a system to tax items sold on the Internet. "This is a 21st century system that will dramatically improve the morass that currently exists," Utah Gov. Michael Leavitt said in a statement after 32 states approved model legislation snipping reams of red tape that has kept state and local governments from collecting tax on Internet sales. The agreement--representing years of painstaking work by state delegates--sets out unified definitions of products from orange juice to salted peanuts...