# Era of no tax internet sales coming to a close- Senate planning vote on Internet sales tax bill **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 21, 2013, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/era-of-no-tax-internet-sales-coming-to-a-close-senate-planning-vote-on-internet-sales-tax-bill/656342 "2013-04-21T22:23:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2013, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/era-of-no-tax-internet-sales-coming-to-a-close-senate-planning-vote-on-internet-sales-tax-bill/656342/81 "2013-05-07T21:35:11Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > It might limit the number of _accidental_ frivolous audits. A system that allows any of the 9000-plus tax jurisdictions to audit an Internet merchant anywhere in the country is inevitably going to result in abuses – e.g. sellers of “COEXIST” bumper stickers will hear from the tax department of Biblethump, Mississippi while the “NOBAMA” publishers will get nastygrams from Snootylib, Massachusetts. I doubt it. There just isn’t much incentive to go after small businesses for political reasons. If such a thing were gonna happen, you would see it happening already. Do you have any evidence liberal companies in conservative states (or vice versa) are audited more often? ---
**Author:** ![yorick73](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/b5a626/32.png) [@yorick73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yorick73)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2013, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/era-of-no-tax-internet-sales-coming-to-a-close-senate-planning-vote-on-internet-sales-tax-bill/656342/82 "2013-05-08T01:24:12Z")
My question is what does the federal government have to do with states collecting state sales taxes? The Supreme Court ruled in [Quill Corp v North Dakota](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quill_Corp._v._North_Dakota) and [National Bellas Hess v Illinois](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Bellas_Hess_v._Illinois) that businesses whose only contacts with the taxing state are by mail or by common carrier lacks the “substantial nexus” required under the Dormant Commerce Clause. In Quill Corp the court did state that Congress could overrule the decision through legislation. This is what the current bill seeks to do. \*NOTE: I got all this info off Wikipedia so please feel free to correct anything that is wrong. ---
**Author:** ![yorick73](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/b5a626/32.png) [@yorick73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yorick73)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2013, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/era-of-no-tax-internet-sales-coming-to-a-close-senate-planning-vote-on-internet-sales-tax-bill/656342/83 "2013-05-09T17:22:16Z")
I find it interesting that many states have “use” tax laws on their books but they are never enforced. Say I buy an item in a nontax state or one with a lower sales-tax rate than my resident state. I am supposed to pay my state the difference in taxes owed. Of course most people do not know about or just ignore these laws. How is this different from online purchases? Physical stores in one state are not required to collect sales tax for your home state…why would we expect internet companies to behave differently? ---
**Author:** ![Desert\_Nomad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desert_nomad/32/177_2.png) [@Desert\_Nomad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desert_Nomad)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2013, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/era-of-no-tax-internet-sales-coming-to-a-close-senate-planning-vote-on-internet-sales-tax-bill/656342/84 "2013-05-10T06:12:40Z")
It’ll be a nightmare for me as a business owner. There are 7,000 tax jurisdictions in the US and we have customers in most of them. Now for each sale we need to keep track of which city, county and state get $0.47 from a sale and send it to them. Physical stores need only worry about one jurisdiction. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2013, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/era-of-no-tax-internet-sales-coming-to-a-close-senate-planning-vote-on-internet-sales-tax-bill/656342/85 "2013-05-10T09:26:31Z")
> [@Renee](#): > > I think this is good. It will make it easier for local businesses to compete. How so? I can’t imagine the 2%-5% (or whatever the local sales tax is) price difference is why people are buying things online. They keep talking about making Australia’s 10% GST applicable to stuff purchased online from overseas, bleating about how that will somehow “make it fairer” for local businesses, spectacularly overlooking the fact it’s often more than 50% cheaper to buy some things off the net instead of getting them locally. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/era-of-no-tax-internet-sales-coming-to-a-close-senate-planning-vote-on-internet-sales-tax-bill/656342.md?page=4)