Avalara – Call for Sales Tax Simplification
The ecommerce association NetChoice wants sales tax compliance for businesses to be simpler. As a founding member of the coalition for True Simplification of Taxation (TruST), this hardly comes as a surprise. But its calls for simplification have grown louder since the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that states can require out-of-state businesses to collect and remit sales tax. Prior to the court’s ruling in South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc., a state could impose a tax collection obligation only on businesses with a physical presence in the state.
On July 24, the House Judiciary Committee met to discuss the ramifications of the Wayfair decision. NetChoice was not among the witnesses. Nonetheless, the organization’s president Steve DelBianco submitted an 11-page statement to the hearing’s written record. It suggests Congress “use its constitutional authority to protect interstate commerce by restoring the physical presence rule.”
Should Congress allow the taxation of remote sales to persist, NetChoice asks Congress to allow states to impose sales tax on remote businesses — “but only if states adopt minimum simplifications stipulated by Congress.”