Pete Sepp
(Washington, DC) – Contrary to its name, legislation introduced today called the “Main Street Fairness Act” contains many unfair provisions that will adversely impact taxpaying consumers and business.
"Despite its smooth title, the Main Street Fairness Act is riddled with fiscal potholes that would make the going decidedly bumpy for taxpayers. State revenue officials have long sought the required federal authority to tax beyond their borders, but with each passing year their arguments for SSUTA have become less credible.
"We were told that ‘tax-free shopping’ was costing states enormous sums, even though businesses and customers involved in online transactions pay many levies such as property, profit, payroll, and fuel taxes. Additionally, many Internet purchases are already subjected to sales taxes. We were told that compliance with SSUTA would be a snap for businesses thanks to recordkeeping software, when in reality the cost and effort involved in complying with up to 15,000 jurisdictions’ tax laws would be far from trivial. The bill’s vague and ineffectual mention of “small sellers” provides no promise of relief from these problems.
"We were told that this legislation is necessary to level the playing field, even though the Internet has been small business’ best friend. Because Main Street has an on-ramp to the Information Superhighway, mom-and-pop stores as well as sole proprietors can market their goods and services to the whole country or the world if they choose. Likewise, going online has allowed small firms to manage their overhead – from buying paper clips to retaining accountants – more efficiently than ever before.
"Giving governments even more sweeping powers to tax won’t restore any part of the private sector to health, especially the small businesses Americans are counting on to lead a resurgence in job and income growth. Furthermore, taxpayers are tired of being left holding the mop for state governments that refuse to clean up the wasteful spending habits causing so many of their current budget messes.
"If Congress truly wants to be fair to Main Street, lawmakers should instead work on passing legislation like H. Res. 95, which affirms that Congress won’t give states ‘the authority to impose any new burdensome or unfair tax collecting requirements on small online businesses.’ In doing so, they’ll be paving the way to a much brighter future for our economy."
1 comment:
Small businesses will become more competitive with the passage of the Main Street Fairness Act. I am a small business owner with less than $50K in annual sales who once thought the way your article suggests. However, after taking my business across state lines establishing nexus in another state my business became subject to an entire additional set of burdensome sales tax collection and remittance requirements. Not only does my home state have varying sales tax rates but now another states made it overwhelming. There has to be a better way.
There is a simple solution: TaxCloud (http://taxcloud.net).
The statements by Ebay and others confuse me. My company currently uses a PayPal checkout button that works with TaxCloud's service so my business (with less than $50k in annual sales) already calculates, collects and remits sales tax for any jurisdiction in any state. It is simpler in most cases for my business to calculate and remit sales tax than to deal with shipping.
If my business can manage to collect the legally due sales tax for my customers, why is it so hard for Ebay and others?
Technology available freely on the internet (like taxcloud) is more than capable of handling sales tax calculation and remittance. Sorry everyone, the "too burdensome" argument carried merit in 1967 and in 1992 (when SCOTUS last ruled on this matter), but in the era of modern computing where Ebay maintains a dominant position, multijurisdictional sales tax calculation and remittance is easily accomplished.
With the passage of the Mainstreet Fairness Act small businesses will realize additional profit resulting from administrative savings.
So what is the real reason Ebay chooses to evade supporting your schools, hospitals, infrastructure, libraries, parks and so much more?
Sales tax is legally due on all Internet transactions. If the merchant fails to collect sales tax on your behalf the responsibility falls on you to remit the tax legally due on your individual state tax return. By failing to so many American's are participating in the act of tax evasion.
By continually supporting and allowing segregation of businesses through maintenance of unfair pricing practices supported by illegal tax evasion many small businesses are unable to realize freedom.
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