The Olympian – Online sales-tax money is key part of state budget. Could a lawsuit derail it?
Steve DelBianco, the executive director of NetChoice, a trade association focusing on electronic commerce, said he’s developing legal arguments and rounding up money to challenge the plan.
“Washington is not likely to see any new revenue from this law, since a court would bar enforcement while legal challenges are resolved,” DelBianco said in an email. “So nobody in Olympia should be counting on new tax revenue in the near term.”
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Colorado’s court win is not standing in the way of another legal challenge to Washington, DelBianco said.
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Carl Szabo, NetChoice’s senior policy counsel, said a lawsuit also could contend that Washington’s law violated privacy protections in the U.S. Constitution.
DelBianco said the information retailers send to the state could “reveal preferences that could be very damaging if they were to become public,” such as purchases from vendors specializing in “health issues, clothing, sexual orientation, personal tastes and financial circumstances.”
“The extent to which that vendor reveals the name of something that’s personal — that information will be in the hands of the state tax department,” DelBianco said.