The Government Wants To Tax The Internet…Again
by: Gerald Washington
Great news for taxpayers, another tax has been repackaged and regurgitated by the Senate. This bipartisan bill, deceptively named the Marketplace Fairness Act of 2015, allows states to make eCommerce sites such as Amazon collect taxes on all of their online sales.
This complicates things for eCommerce businesses, seeing as there are nearly 10,000 sales tax jurisdictions in the United States. However, this alleged act of fairness towards brick-and mortar businesses only makes things harder for consumers who wish to use the internet marketplace.
In a normal scenario, sales taxes are paid for things (such as roads or parks) by the local communities that will directly benefit from them. If the Marketplace Fairness Act were to come to fruition, the state government could force online retailers to pay those taxes, whether or not those companies benefit from it. It is something that naturally a state government would approve of because it gives them a little more gold to line their pockets.
But this is not the first time a protectionist bill like this has been seen. The most recent was in 2013, which was blocked by Speaker John Boehner.
“Brick-and-mortar retailers enjoy many basic advantages over other retailers. Driving up the cost for purchases made online or by mail-order will hinder competition and open taxpayers up to a whole new slew of possible taxes.” says John Northruft of the Heartland Institute.
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