Senate votes for retail fairness

Senate votes for retail fairness

U.S. Sens. Mike Johanns and Deb Fischer were among a strong bi-partisan Senate contingent that voted on Monday to pass the Marketplace Fairness Act – which gives states the ability to collect online sales taxes.

Nebraska loses an estimated $98 million[1] every year to untaxed online and catalog sales. While Nebraskans are legally required to remit use tax through their income tax return, compliance is extremely low. This lost revenue makes Nebraska more reliant on other taxes – particularly property taxes.

The Marketplace Fairness Act would require online retailers to collect sales taxes. Right now, a state can only require sellers to collect these taxes if they have a physical presence in the state, putting local retailers at a competitive disadvantage with out-of-state online and catalog sellers who can’t be required to collect sales taxes.

In other words, the Marketplace Fairness Act does not enact a new tax but rather provides an enforcement mechanism for our current tax code.

Nebraska U.S. Sens. Mike Johanns and Deb Fischer both voted for the bill. In doing so, they acted to resolve a fairness issue for Nebraska’s retailers and moved to lessen our state’s property tax reliance. We hope the House of Representatives will follow the Senate’s lead and also adopt The Marketplace Fairness Act.

[1] National Conference of State Legislatures, Collecting E-Commerce Taxes: An Interactive Map