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WASHINGTON (AP) — You don't see this very often: a majority of Senate Republicans voting to make people who buy stuff on the Internet pay state and local sales taxes. The Senate could vote as early as Thursday on a bill to empower states to require online retailers to collect state and local sales taxes for purchases made over the Internet. Under the bill, the sales taxes would be sent to the states where a shopper lives. On Wednesday, the bill passed a test vote in the Senate, 74 to 23, with 27 Republicans voting in favor. Senate Majority Leader...

Proposed Internet sales-tax legislation received a huge boost on Monday when the White House officially backed the bill, saying it would level the playing field among online and retail stores by ensuring that both pay sales taxes. “Today, while local small-business retailers follow the law and collect sales taxes from customers who make purchases in their stores, many big-business online and catalogue retailers do not collect the same taxes,” White House press secretary Jay Carney. “This puts local, neighborhood-based small businesses at a disadvantage to big, out-of-state, online companies.”Now, the Senate is scheduled to debate the Internet sales-tax legislation for...

JAY CARNEY: We believe that the Marketplace Fairness Act will level the playing field for local small business retailers who are undercut every day by out-of state online companies. Today, while local small business retailers follow the law and collect sales taxes from customers who make purchases in their stores, many big business online and catalogue retailers do not collect the same taxes. This puts local neighborhood-based small businesses at a disadvantage to big, out-of-state, online companies. And because these out-of-state companies are able to cut corners and play by a different set of rules, cities and states lose out...

The Internet sales tax is back, and it could be the next big vote in the Senate. The proposed law would enable states to force businesses to collect sales tax from customers who live in their state—even when the businesses have no connection to that state. As Heritage President Jim DeMint has said, this violates the classic American principle of “no taxation without representation.” Retailers would be forced to act as tax collectors for states in which they have no voice. Under current law, retailers are required to collect sales taxes only in states where they have a physical presence....

Amazon may have just upended Congress — to the chagrin of those pushing for a federal online sales tax bill. The online retail company last week inked deals with Texas and Nevada to begin collecting sales taxes on purchases. The company has brokered seven such agreements in recent months while bills to standardize collection of Internet sales taxes nationwide are mired in politics on Capitol Hill. That puts lobbyists and others who have been fighting for a federal bill in a quandary: If the biggest states begin to see sales tax revenue from Amazon’s collections, is it still worth the...

When it comes to avoiding the requirement of collecting sales tax from its consumers, Amazon is not afraid to open its wallet. More than nine months before a proposed June 2012 referendum asking that California’s new Internet sales tax law be overturned, Amazon, the Seattle-based online retailer, has already spent $5.25 million, state records show, more than any company has spent in California this far from a vote in at least a decade. “The initiative and referendum process have been hijacked,” said Loni Hancock, a state senator from Berkeley, who wrote the law Amazon is trying to overturn and who...

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) introduces legislation that would require online retailers such as Amazon to collect sales taxes. Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) plans a similar measure in the House.

Gov. Jerry Brown has signed into law California’s tax on Internet sales through affiliate advertising which will immediately cut small-business website revenue 20% to 30%, experts say. The bill, AB 28X, takes effect immediately. The state Board of Equalization says the tax will raise $200 million a year, but critics claim it will raise nothing because online retailers will end their affiliate programs rather than collect the tax. Amazon has already emailed its termination of its affiliate advertising program with 25,000 websites

Gov. Jerry Brown has signed into law California's tax on Internet sales through affiliate advertising which will immediately cut small-business website revenue 20% to 30%, experts say. The bill, AB 28X, takes effect immediately. The state Board of Equalization says the tax will raise $200 million a year, but critics claim it will raise nothing because online retailers will end their affiliate programs rather than collect the tax. "This law won't impact Amazon that much but it is a crisis for website owners who make revenue by placing ads on their websites for thousands of online retailers," Madigan said. "Most...

NEW YORK (CBS) ― New York Internet shoppers, take note: in five weeks, sales tax-free shopping will end on many Web sites thanks to rewritten state rules that are trying to force Internet retailers to collect. At Chrono Tech Watches in White Plains, Jerry Nally is glad the clock is ticking on many Internet retailers that don't charge New York sales tax. Nally says those so-called "e-tailers" steal his customers. "They'll come in our store, look at our product, touch it, play with it, look at the warranties, then go back to the web and buy it tax free," says...