Venango County Tea Party Patriots

A non-partisan, non-profit, non-member, association dedicated to educating the public and promoting the principles of fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government and free market economics, and all other lawful activities.

online sales tax

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Coalition to Fight Online Sales Tax

Several trade associations launched a new coalition on Monday to battle efforts to pass online sales tax legislation.

The True Simplification of Taxation (TruST) is made up of the Direct Marketing Association, the Electronic Retailing Association, NetChoice and the American Catalog Mailers Association,

The group is a counterweight to the Alliance for Main Street Fairness Coalition, a coalition of traditional retailers urging Congress to empower states to tax online purchases.

Jerry Cerasale, a vice president for the Direct Marketing Association, said an online tax would “throttle new businesses before they even get off the ground.”

“There are more than 9,600 taxing jurisdictions in the US today,” he explained in a statement. “Requiring that any business — particularly a new one — be prepared to comply with the rules in all of those jurisdictions in order to do business across state lines is a precipitously high barrier and a very costly one.”

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Retailers Expect Online Sales Tax Will Happen

Retail groups say their campaign for an online sales tax bill is gaining momentum and now say it’s a question of when, not if, such a measure is enacted.

The National Retail Federation (NRF) and the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) say last week’s push for a sales-tax bill in the Senate, though unsuccessful, shows that the idea is gaining traction. The groups say the growing pressure from governors across the country is having an impact and express confidence that a bill will eventually pass Congress.

But with legislating expected to be all but at a standstill between now and November’s election, retailers aren’t predicting a measure will reach President Obama’s desk this year.

“Nobody’s expecting a lot because not a lot’s moving through the process,” said Jason Brewer, a RILA spokesman. “There’s very few [legislative] vehicles out there.”

But anti-tax groups that oppose the measure say one vehicle is all retailers would need to make their plan a reality, and are worried about the legislative deal-making likely to come at the end of the year.

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Online Sales Tax Push

Gov. Terry Branstad of Iowa this week became the latest in a string of top Republican state officials to back federal legislation giving states more freedom to collect online sales taxes.

Branstad’s letter of support, obtained exclusively by The Hill, comes not long after another prominent Republican governor, Chris Christie of New Jersey, also urged Congress to get moving on sales tax legislation.

But despite the increasingly vocal push from Republican governors and retail groups for a federal solution, supporters of online sales tax legislation face a heavy lift in getting a measure through Congress this year.

Christie and Branstad are among about a dozen GOP governors to back the push for online sales tax legislation. Other state leaders who are on board include Mitch Daniels of Indiana, Paul LePage of Maine and Rick Snyder of Michigan.

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