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States Push to Collect Online Sales Tax

Posted by Zonk on from the but-i-like-my-bulk-cheerios-on-the-cheap dept.

Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "On Saturday, 18 states will implement the Streamlined Sales Tax Project, which will make it easier to collect local and state sales taxes on purchases made over the Internet while offering amnesty on uncollected taxes. In their longstanding opposition to collect sales tax, many online retailers 'have cited a 1992 Supreme Court ruling that said that it would be too onerous for e-tailers to calculate all the permutations of differing state and local tax rates,' the Wall Street Journal reports. 'One goal of the project was to remove the ruling as a key defense for online merchants.' Is your state involved? 'The states that have signed on are Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota and West Virginia. Five more -- Arkansas, Ohio, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming -- are in the process of finalizing the requirements needed to join, while Washington, Texas and Nevada are in earlier stages.'"

3 of 395 comments (clear)

  1. Direct URL to SSTP web site by xmas2003 · · Score: 4, Informative
    Here's a direct link to the StreamLined Sales Tax website which is confusing as all get out with their last press release being in 2002; makes you wonder how "legit" these guys are. BTW, should this be filed under "The Mighty Buck" instead of Politics?!? ;-)

    BTW, there's been a noteable increase in Wall Street Journal stories on Slashdot - certainly has improved the quality - kudo's to the editors and Carl Bialik from the WSJ

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    1. Re:Direct URL to SSTP web site by hsmith · · Score: 4, Informative

      If i recall correctly, this is actually a company that is trying to sell their taxing product to the several states and they have a good few states lined up. The guy in charge was on a talk show i listen to a few months ago. Basically, they wrote the software to do all the taxing and now they are going and getting the clients (individual states). So once they have enough states they are "in business" so to speak.

  2. Not quite by dreamchaser · · Score: 4, Informative

    Prior to online sales, the rule was that if the seller had what is called a 'nexus' (meaning a busines presence basically) in a given state, then sales tax applied. The buyer and seller did NOT have to be in the same state if nexus could be established.

    While I disagree with this arguement, it *could* be argued that the Internet creates a presence in every state, far beyond the old days of mail order catalogs.

    What it really boils down to is politicians on both sides of the aisle hate seeing money being exchanged that they can't get their greedy hands on.