SoylentNews

Ethanol-fueled [soylentnews.org] writes:

The Wall Street Journal [wsj.com] reports that, On Nov. 1 — three days before Election Day — the popular Internet Tax Freedom Act signed into law in 1988 and renewed 3 times since is due to expire.

The Internet Tax Freedom Act prohibits state and local governments from imposing burdens online that don't exist offline. Multiple jurisdictions can't tax the same online transaction — a critical consumer protection in a country with more than 9,600 taxing authorities. The law also bans email taxes and new taxes on Internet access services.

But in a few months customers may begin receiving notices from their Internet providers that new taxes are on the way, due to the renewal of the policy being held hostage by lobbyists for giant retailers. Since the biggest retailers already collect sales taxes on purchases both online and off, they want to impose a greater tax burden on their smaller competitors.

Senators already voted last year to rewrite the rules of interstate commerce when they approved the Marketplace Fairness Act, which would force Web merchants to collect for all of America's taxing authorities. Even if one favors additional tax collections on e-commerce — which most Americans do not — why should this controversial idea be used to destroy a successful policy on which most Americans agree?

---

Original Submission