U.S Senate Moves Towards Taxing Online Shoppers

Tax Laws Are Catching Up To The Internet

Shopping on the internet is about to get a little more expensive. For years many states did not charge taxes when shoppers made purchases on the internet. I saw the writing on the wall that this was really going to end when last September internet giant Amazon.com began charging PA sales tax for shoppers in our state.

I saw another sign of this when a retailer we do business with contacted me a few weeks ago stating that we would be receiving an invoice in respect to the tax that we "should have been charged" on a purchase.

Another shoe dropped late yesterday evening when the U.S. Senate passed legislation to force Internet retailers to collect sales taxes for state and local governments.

The vote was 69-to-27 in favor, and included senators from both major parties which demonstartes support on both sides of the aisle.  The vote sends the issue to the House of Representatives, where it must be passed in the same form before it can be presented to the president to be signed into law.

The Marketplace Fairness Act, allows U.S. states to force online retailers with more than $1 million in annual out-of-state sales to collect sales taxes from customers and remit them back to state and local governments.

The actual bill, introduced in the Senate ss S.743 and you can read it here. The House version is named H.R.684 and you can read that one here.