Congress ignores retailers’ prayers for gross sales tax aid
Many on-line retailers want to see Congress standardize gross sales tax charges and remittance procedures so they’d not should adjust to various guidelines from 1000’s of taxing jurisdictions. However prospects for fast motion should not good.
The American Catalog Mailers Affiliation, which represents retailers that promote by way of printed catalogs and on-line, is among the many teams lobbying Congress to create nationwide gross sales tax guidelines that may ease the post-Wayfair burden on on-line retailers. However Brian Johnson of The Vogel Group, a lobbyist for ACMA, is just not optimistic that Congress will act swiftly, partially as a result of the matter falls beneath the purview of the Home Judiciary Committee, which doesn’t typically cope with tax points.
Tax points simply aren’t prevalent sufficient for lots of committee members to have workers which have a deep understanding of the problem.
“Tax points simply aren’t prevalent sufficient for lots of committee members to have workers which have a deep understanding of the problem,” Johnson says. “We spend quite a lot of time educating round this difficulty, the historical past of the Wayfair case, and the complexities companies are nonetheless going through.”
It doesn’t assist, in Johnson’s view, that Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler has proven little curiosity within the difficulty, as an alternative focusing extra on points like immigration, antitrust and allegations of misconduct by former President Donald Trump. Nadler’s workplace didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Others have proven extra curiosity. Six members of Congress, together with U.S. Rep. Andy Kim of New Jersey and U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, each Democrats, final fall requested the Common Accounting Workplace to replace its 2017 examine on the price of gross sales tax assortment for on-line retailers. However Johnson says the GAO has not responded to that request. Nor has he seen any indication that the administration of President Joe Biden is targeted on easing retailers’ gross sales tax burden.
For extra on on-line gross sales tax, learn our in-depth article, “The hardly bearable burdens of on-line gross sales tax.”
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