Vishesh Kumar
But with record numbers of customers flocking to make purchases online, states are deprived of revenue they badly need to fund civic projects, argues Enzi. "Main Street retailers collect sales taxes, while many online and catalog retailers are exempt from collecting the same taxes," a press release outlining the bill said. "This is costing states and localities billions in lost revenue."
And while the revenue of online retailers such as Amazon grows fat, reasons for not paying state taxes are wearing thin. So far, Web retailers have successfully argued that the burden of having to account for the thousands of local tax statues is too cumbersome. But in 2005, a group of 15 states banded together and enacted the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement, which created a simpler tax policy and made it less of a hassle for online retailers to collect taxes from customers in these states. The agreement also set the stage for Enzi's provision. "Now that the agreement is in effect, the states are looking to Congress to enact legislation requiring remote sellers to collect the tax," says attorney Andrew Feiner of the New York law firm Andrews Kurth. With Congress in Democratic control, and with states finally having banded together, the odds of a law being enacted may be greater now than ever.
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