From the Austin Business Journal:
Congress must decide soon whether to extend the moratorium on Internet access taxes, but eBay is more concerned about legislation that would force Web merchants to collect sales taxes on out-of-state purchases.
The moratorium, which prohibits states and localities from taxing Internet access, expires Nov. 1. It went into effect in 1998. Many business groups are lobbying Congress to make the moratorium permanent, but the National Governors Association favors a four-year extension, so that Congress can revisit the issue and "review any unintended consequences for consumers, industry or the states"...
Under current law, sales taxes are charged only if the Internet retailer has a physical presence in the purchaser's state...
"Brick-and-mortar retailers are currently required to collect sales taxes while many online and catalog retailers are not," the federation wrote Congress. "This is not only fundamentally unfair to Main Street retailers, but it is costing states and localities billions in lost revenue."
Ted Cohen, an eBay vice president who led the company's lobbying day on Capitol Hill, says small brick-and-mortar stores are being hurt by big-box retailers, not Internet sellers.
"It's not eBay that put them out of business," Cohen says.
The push to require Internet sales tax collections is "about large retailers who want to crush small business," he says...
In short, share your views on Internet taxes with your Congressional representatives. After all, they are supposed to represent YOU.
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