Online sales tax: Is it in our future?
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) plans to bring the Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013 to the floor today for a preliminary vote.聽 The measure would give states authority to require on-line sellers to collect sales tax on the products they sell to consumers within their jurisdictions.
This is big news.聽 Two years ago, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) refused to send the bill to the Senate floor.
So this year, Reid is bypassing the committee. 聽The idea has growing bipartisan support among the nation鈥檚 governors鈥搈any of whom are strapped for tax revenues. A few weeks ago, 75 senators voted to include it in the non-binding Senate budget resolution, and an identical version in the House appears to have support. That sounds promising.
This year鈥檚 bill doesn鈥檛 differ much from the 2011 version, but it does increase the threshold for covered businesses to firms with sales over $1 million, making it easier for small business groups to stomach. And if it really does bring in the millions of dollars promised, it might make up for the sequester鈥檚 cuts in just about every program that helps states.
Let鈥檚 see what the Senate does and, if the Senate OKs the bill, what happens in the House. 聽As I said in, this might be the year the decades old impasse over taxing remote sales is finally resolved.
