Gloucher Times – State backs off online sales tax — for now
But NetChoice — which represents Overstock.com, eBay, PayPal and other online retailers — argued that the Baker administration didn’t have legal authority to tax businesses with no actual presence in Massachusetts. The American Catalog Mailers Association also signed onto the lawsuit.
“The new rule blatantly violates the provisions of Internet Tax Freedom Act, a statute crafted by Congress — and made permanent in 2016 — specifically to prevent the kinds of state tax obligations purportedly created by the directive, namely, those targeting internet vendors precisely because the vendors engage in electronic commerce,” the group argued in its lawsuit.
NetChoice Executive Director Steve DelBianco said the state also violated administrative procedures by not holding public hearings on the new rule.
“State tax collectors must have been working in a dark basement in Boston, since they developed and adopted this regulation without public comment or even a single public hearing,” he said.