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Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Ind. Gov't. - "Indiana legislator tells Congress to pass online sales tax"
Lesley Weidenbener in a special to the Evansville Courier & Press, reports in a long story that begins:
INDIANAPOLIS — A key Indiana legislator told a Congressional committee Wednesday that online retailers should be required to pay sales taxes on web-based purchases to help state budgets and reduce their advantages over so-called brick-and-mortar stores.Sen. Luke Kenley, a Noblesville Republican who chairs the state Senate Appropriations Committee, said that big and small businesses alike should collect taxes, whether the purchases takes place on Main Street or online.
But members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday had questions about the practicality of forcing businesses to collect the tax, the affect [sic.] that might have on prices, and whether small online firms should be exempted. Still, some lawmakers acknowledged that online sales are growing so quickly that they may need to act.
“I don’t think Congress should be in the business of picking winners and losers and inaction by Congress today results in a system with winners and losers,” said U.S. Rep. Mike Pence, an Indiana Republican and member of the Judiciary Committee.
Kenley traveled to Washington D.C. to speak to the Judiciary Committee not only as a fiscal leader in Indiana but also as chairman of the Streamlined Sales Tax Governing Board, which is national effort to simplify state and local state laws so that the sale tax can be more easily collected online.
He said the streamlined tax effort makes it cheap, efficient and easy for online retailers to collect the tax, just as brick-and-mortar stores already do.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on November 30, 2011 03:30 PM
Posted to Indiana Government