New Internet Sales Tax Bill Introduced

WASHINGTON — The battle to close what many advocates say is an Internet sales tax loophole was revived on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. A group of bipartisan senators introduced a bill, dubbed the Marketplace Fairness Act, which allows states to collect taxes on online and other remote sales in the 45 states and the District of Columbia that collect sales tax whether they have a physical presence in the state or not. It also provides for a small-seller exemption that prohibits states from requiring remote sellers with less than $1 million in annual nationwide remote sales to collect sales and use taxes. The new legislation, led by Sens. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) and Mike Enzi (R., Wyo.), is similar to a bill the Senate passed in May 2013 that later stalled in the House. Retail groups have been pressing Congress to pass legislation for several years. Congress has been unable to find a resolution on the issue of taxing Internet sales, as states have been enacting their own laws to close what they say is a loophole created in 1992 in Quill v. North Dakota, a Supreme Court ruling that stated retailers were required to collect sales tax from out-of-state customers only if they

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