Legislation that promotes fair competition between local and Main Street retailers and internet-only sellers continues to gain traction in the U.S. House and Senate, according to Farm Bureau News.
The Marketplace Fairness Act of 2015 (S 698) and the Remote Transactions Parity Act of 2015 (HR 3775) allow states to enforce their existing sales tax laws on remote sellers, but the bills do not create new taxes or increase existing ones.
Under the bills, states must adopt sales tax collection simplification requirements to be able to collect sales tax on remote retailers. The bills make a small-seller exemption so that remote sellers with less than $1 million in annual sales do not have to collect sales taxes. In addition, remote sellers must be provided software for collecting the tax to ease the administrative burden.
When the sales tax disparity causes a Main Street business to close or scale back, the impact is especially hurtful to already struggling rural towns, American Farm Bureau Federation President Bob Stallman noted, but it’s not only small business owners and the families they serve who are harmed.