Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., confirmed that next week he will ...
Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., confirmed that next week he will introduce a remote sales tax bill. That move was predicted by state tax officials seeking authority to require e-commerce Web sites and other remote sellers to collect and remit…
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sales taxes on purchases (WID July 19 p7). “Clearly at this point there are different perspectives, so whatever I'll be introducing, I'm not going to foreclose changes that hopefully can be developed through a consensus effort among stakeholders,” he told us. Delahunt confirmed that on any such bill the sticking point is the revenue threshold for exemption from collecting sales taxes, intended to shield small businesses from administrative burdens. He has talked with several lawmakers showing “substantial interest” in co- sponsoring legislation, he said. Delahunt is not sure how close his bill’s substance will be to the Sales Tax Fairness and Simplification Act (S-34) by Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo. That measure would require remote sellers to collect taxes once 10 states comprising 20 percent of the population of states that collect sales tax join the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement (WID May 24 p3). “I'm viewing it at this point as a working draft,” Delahunt said. The Enzi bill would set a $5 million revenue threshold for collecting and remitting. The Streamlined Sales Tax Governing Board, the body behind the Agreement, fears larger sellers may use the legislation to try to raise the threshold. In a conference call Wednesday, the group said one company participating in the drafting of the Agreement proposed a threshold exceeding $20 million.