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Arizonans are now paying more money to state and local governments for the items they’re buying online. The Department of Revenue reports it collected an extra $51.5 million in the first two months after a new law went into effect. Of that, $23.4 million is going into the state treasury, with the balance parceled out among cities and counties. What makes this number so impressive is budget analysts predicted the net gain to the general fund for a full fiscal year would be just $85 million. And the collections reported so far don’t even represent December Christmas sales. The new...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court says states can force online shoppers to pay sales tax. The 5-4 ruling Thursday is a win for states, who said they were losing out on billions of dollars annually under two decades-old Supreme Court decisions that impacted online sales tax collection. The high court ruled Thursday to overturn those decisions. snip “Each year the physical presence rule becomes further removed from economic reality and results in significant revenue losses to the States. These critiques underscore that the physical presence rule, both as first formulated and as applied today, is an incorrect interpretation of...

In fairly short order, the Supreme Court is going to begin hearing arguments in the case of South Dakota v. Wayfair Inc. This case is being closely watched around the country because of the potential impact it will have on consumers as well as retailers, both traditional and online. The state of South Dakota is asking the Supremes to overrule their 1992 decision in Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, which held that states could not force online retailers to collect sales tax in other states where the company didn’t have a physical presence.Now the White House has weighed in on...

The Supreme Court on Friday said it would consider whether states can broadly require online retailers to collect sales taxes even if they lack a physical presence in the state, taking a case that could have a major impact on online commerce. The justices on Friday took up that call, explicitly agreeing to consider whether the earlier high-court precedent should be overruled. “My bet is that they are looking at it to overturn,” said Edward Zelinsky, a tax-law professor at Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law. The alternative, he said, would be to point to this issue as an example...

The Supreme Court agreed Friday to decide if states should be able to collect taxes on internet sales, which would generate billions in revenue for local governments, but also raise the cost of online shopping for consumers. Just over a quarter-century ago, the court ruled that a state could not force mail order catalog companies to collect sales taxes unless they had a physical presence in the state. Led by South Dakota, 36 states want the court to take another look at the issue, arguing that the 1992 decision was issued “before Amazon was even selling books out of Jeff...

Republicans in the Senate are leading efforts to pass legislation that would allow the states to impose a sales tax on online transactions. Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) has proposed the Marketplace Fairness Act (MFA), which would allow states to "collect and remit sales and use taxes with respect to remote sales.” The bill includes an exemption for companies whose gross remote sales are less than $1 million per year. The legislation enjoys support particularly among legislators in rural states who believe that online retailers are encroaching on sales made out of traditional storefronts. […] This is not the first time...

Apple is one of ten tech giants to once again call on the US Government not to reauthorize the Patriot Act in its current form. The Act expires on 1st June unless it is renewed by Congress. Apple was joined by AOL, Dropbox, Evernote, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter and Yahoo.In an open letter to President Obama, NSA Director Admiral Rogers and other prominent government figures, the companies urge Congress to end the bulk collection of communications metadata–the logs that determine how and when ordinary citizens contact each other.The letter says that mass surveillance must end, and that a revised bill must contain mechanisms to ensure...

In the beginning, there was nothing. Then, Al Gore created the internet; and soon there were entire businesses using the interwebs for commerce and profit. We really should have known that it was only a matter of time until DC insiders tried to squeeze a little more tax revenue out of that particular free-market innovation. The Market Place Fairness Act (AKA: Small Internet-Business Death Sentence) is making a comeback. After Harry Reid managed to pass the punitive tax bill through the Democrat controlled Senate, some Beltway wonks are now trying to resurrect support for it in the US House. And,...

Over the weekend, Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley voiced his support for the so-called Marketplace Fairness Act, which should be more approprietly named the Internet Sales Tax Mandate. Bentley estimated that Alabama’s beleaguered General Fund budget would gain roughly $150 million a year if online retailers were forced to collect taxes for things they sell online to consumers all over the country. The U.S. Senate passed a bill last year that exempted businesses with under $1 million in annual revenue from having to collect the tax, but Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Vestavia Hills, is said to be working on a new version...

This past month, the Illinois State Supreme Court determined the state’s affiliate nexus law—a law requiring out-of-state companies with advertising affiliates in the state to collect and remit sales tax—violated federal law. In the majority opinion, Justice Anne Burke ruled that Illinois’ attempt to force collection of sales tax by out-of-state retailers based on their decision to use in-state online advertising rather than traditional print advertising represented a discriminatory taxation regime on the Internet and therefore violated the federal Internet Tax Freedom Act. No one understands the significance of last month’s Illinois State Supreme Court decision better than FatWallet founder...

House Judiciary Committee Bob Goodlatte plans to hold a hearing in the first half of the year to explore online sales tax legislation, advocates say. Proponents of an Internet sales tax bill, such as major retailers, are holding out hope for action in the House in 2014 despite the opposition of many conservatives and the skeptical stance of Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). Supporters and opponents of online sales tax proposals are focusing their lobbying energy on Goodlatte (R-Va.), who has released a set of seven principles that an online sales tax bill would have to meet in order to be...

Massachusetts residents have only a few days of tax-free shopping left on Amazon.com. Beginning Friday, the state will apply its 6.25 percent sales tax to purchases made from Amazon, though the tax will not apply to third-party vendors who use the site. The state reached an agreement with Amazon last year. Owners of traditional "brick and mortar" stores have long complained of being at a competitive disadvantage to online retailers who are not required to collect sales taxes. State revenue officials tell The Boston Globe the tax on Amazon purchases is expected to raise nearly $37 million for the state...

The Internet Sales Tax. Nothing illustrates the ravenous nature of BigGov and its insatiable desire to destroy even the smallest extant vestiges of Free Enterprise in America than the effort underway to pull millions of small businesses into their net of taxation. While the support this legislation is getting on Capitol Hill from Democrats is no particular eye-opener, it is the support from Republicans that should alert us to the hypocritical tendencies of that party. In one breath, they pander to us about smaller government and cutting spending and taxes – but when they think our backs are turned, they...

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Tuesday that he likely couldn’t support the online sales tax bill that the Senate passed this week, underscoring the challenge that supporters face in getting the measure through the lower chamber. Boehner told Bloomberg Television that the Marketplace Fairness Act, which got 69 votes in the Senate on Monday, would heap a “big burden on some very small businesses.” "I just think that moving this bill where you have 50 different sales tax codes, it is a mess out there,” Boehner said. “You are going to make it much more difficult for online businesses to...

A week ago, he noted on his Facebook page that his poll numbers after voting no on Toomey/Manchin put him somewhere south of “pond scum.” Today, this. He won’t face the voters again for five and a half years, but he shares a home state with Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly. They can hurt him by campaigning against him in 2018 more than they can anyone else in the Senate. No wonder he’s looking for ways to flip: Republican Sen. Jeff Flake told CNN he is willing to reverse his opposition to expanding background checks for guns if the Senate...

The Senate sided with traditional retailers and financially strapped state and local governments Monday by passing a bill that would widely subject online shopping — for many a largely tax-free frontier — to state sales taxes. The Senate passed the bill by a vote of 69 to 27, getting support from Republicans and Democrats alike. But opposition from some conservatives who view it as a tax increase will make it a tougher sell in the House. President Barack Obama has conveyed his support for the measure. Under current law, states can only require retailers to collect sales taxes if the...

The US Senate on Monday passed a bill aimed at ending tax-free shopping on the internet but the move looks set to face fierce opposition before it becomes law. The Marketplace Fairness Act, which has cross-party supporter and the backing of powerful retailers, would give states the power to require retailers with sales over $1m to collect state and local sales taxes for online purchases.

Freshman Sen. Ted Cruz, emerging as a leading voice of Capitol Hill conservatives, said Monday that it is “incomprehensible” that the Senate is close to passing a bill that would require booming Internet retailers to collect state sales taxes, warning that the move will kill jobs and hurt the economy. Mr. Cruz, a Texas Republican and tea party favorite, called the Internet a “thriving ecosystem” that has allowed new businesses to “compete in the national marketplace in ways that would have been impossible 15 years ago, and it empowers consumer choice.” “But tax-hungry politicians view the Internet as yet another...

The internet is the most recent, best equalizer for small businesses hoping to make it a business world that requires millions in facilities, start-up, advertising, and delivery. That is why the following letter caught my attention regarding the proposed, new online sales tax. It is such a great, concise summary of the wrong-headedness of the internet sales tax. The great businesses spawned by the advent of the internet, the googles, facebooks, and amazons, are now huge. But the smaller businesses and potential start-ups are the real story. Please read the following letter and, if it mirrors your sentiment, strongly consider...

As the debate over the merits of an online sales tax policy that would allow states to collect tax from vendors outside their state boundaries brews, a lobbyist for the National Retail Federation, a group supporting the proposed legislation, dismissed the United States Constitution as an “18th-century document.”“The industry is evolving very rapidly, and the law today is a 20th-century interpretation of an 18th-century document that is holding back the entire retail industry as it adapts to 21st-century consumer preferences and demand,” David French, senior vice president for government affairs at the NRF, said in a statement provided to the Wall...