Will Online Retailers Start Collecting Sales Tax?
Next year, with Democrats in charge? “The stars are lined up better,” says Harley Duncan, executive director of the Federation of Tax Administrators, which represents state tax officials.
It’s not just the change in partisan control that has raised the states’ hopes. They also believe they can make a stronger case for new collection authority now that the SSUTA, which is designed to harmonize and simplify sales tax laws, is finally operating. As of Jan. 1, 15 states will be full participants in SSUTA, meaning they’ve adopted the required changes to their own laws. State officials spent years haggling over such issues as whether bakery bagels should be considered groceries, which few states tax, or prepared food, which is widely taxed. (The conclusion: If a bakery provides a utensil with your bagel or heats it for you, it counts as prepared food.)
So far, 1,000 merchants have signed up to voluntarily collect taxes for the SSUTA states, Duncan reports. As an incentive, participating merchants who use certain sales tax processing services get their tax collection costs subsidized and aren’t held responsible for mistakes those services might make.
The states aren’t alone in pushing this. The E-fairness Coalition, representing shopping mall operators and bricks-and-mortar retailers, is also backing the Enzi-Dorgan legislation.
[From Forbes.com]
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