Thursday, April 12, 2012

Stop S. 1832 Dead In It’s Nasty Little Tracks!

Here is something worth your attention.  I obtained this information from The Heritage Foundation (thank you, HF!).  It concerns a proposal to allow states to tax sales that originate in other states.  Aren’t we Taxes Enough Already?  I sent the following to my members of Congress.  I hope you will do the same.  (Copy and paste if you wish, editing as you see fit.)

Message:

I am opposed to S. 1832, and I hope you will oppose it, too.

It is not surprising that states want a new source of revenue. After all, they're struggling with their bloated budgets in this weak economy. But overriding the Quill decision (which prohibited states from collecting sales taxes on sales outside their jurisdictions) would only give states an incentive to increase taxes instead of cutting the size, scope, and cost of government. And it would be consumers and businesses that pay the price.

There are business groups, too, who are lobbying for the law, arguing that it would protect "Main Street" retailers and "bricks and mortar" stores that are supposedly at a disadvantage. But these groups seek enactment of S. 1832 so that states can prefer in-state businesses over out-of-state businesses in the kind of anti-competitive economic discrimination the U.S. Constitution was in part adopted to prevent.  Furthermore, every sale of goods involves at least one physical facility located in one state or another, which means that those businesses already can be taxed by at least one state. In short, no one is "untaxable."

At a time when the U.S. economy is struggling to get back on its feet, Congress should not enact a law that interferes with the independent decisions of millions of consumers in the free marketplace and overturns the settled expectations of businesses that have made market decisions under the current rules for two decades. And it shouldn't give state governments a reason to take more money from taxpayers instead of getting their spending under control.

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