For Immediate Release:
(Washington, DC) –Federal legislation introduced today that would overturn constitutionalprecedent and allow states to force businesses beyond their borders to remittaxes has many of the same problems plaguing other bills giving the federalgovernment’s blessing to “remote sales” tax schemes. That’s the conclusion of the362,000-member National Taxpayers Union (NTU), which has announced itsopposition to the latest bill, introduced by Representatives Jackie Speier(D-CA) and Steve Womack (R-AR). NTU Executive Vice President Pete Sepp offeredthe following comments on the proposal:
“Notcontent with avoiding the mistake of their House and Senate colleagues whobacked the Main Street Fairness Act, some Members of Congress are bent onmoving new legislation of their own that would give the green light to trampleon taxpayers and the businesses that serve them. But whatever the title of thislatest bill is, forget about ‘fairness’ on Main Street; the proposal simplytakes another pothole-filled path to an unwelcome economic destination.
Thoughthe House plan introduced today does not explicitly authorize the StreamlinedSales and Use Tax cartel, as the tragically misnamed Main Street Fairness Actdoes, the two pieces of legislation are based on similarly flawed concepts.Both play upon the assumption that e-commerce is some vast ‘untaxed’enterprise, when in fact sales taxes are already collected on intrastate aswell as ‘click-and-mortar’ transactions. Both fail to sufficiently appreciatethe profit, payroll, fuel, and other taxes that online businesses and theircustomers already ‘contribute’ to federal and state coffers. Both pay onlylimited attention to the disproportionate compliance costs that strugglingsmaller businesses would face from new sales tax collection edicts. Both glossover the primary causes of states’ fiscal woes: a slow economy (which certainlywon’t be helped through higher taxes) and a failure to keep budgets undercontrol. Both fall short of recognizing the importance of the Internet to thesurvival of small businesses, for expanding their customer bases and formanaging their own expenses. If this is Congress’s idea of ‘helping Mom andPop’ establishments, I’d hate to see what hurting them looks like.
Electedofficials should be concentrating on policies that will make America aneconomic powerhouse, rather than consign us to the poorhouse. That effort couldstart with passage of bipartisan legislation like H. Res. 95, which affirmsthat Congress won’t give states ‘the authority to impose any new burdensome orunfair tax collecting requirements on small online businesses.’ Doing so wouldprovide one of many protection measures necessary to give job creators theconfidence they need to lead a long-overdue recovery.”
NTU is anonpartisan, nonprofit citizen organization founded in 1969 to work for lowertaxes, smaller government, and economic freedom at all levels. The group wasamong the first to support the federal Internet Access Tax Moratorium andoppose the states’ Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement. Note: Formore on NTU’s work in this and other public policy areas, visit www.ntu.org.