Daily Kos: Online sales tax loophole to get final Senate vote, face ...

The bill closing the online sales tax loophole has made it through four Senate votes with more than 60 supporters, so there isn't much drama attached to a final Senate vote that only requires 50 supporters, slated for Monday afternoon. But with that, attention has to turn to the House, where the bill faces more challenges.

Grover Norquist and other anti-tax absolutists oppose the bill, even though it doesn't raise taxes, but just requires online retailers with more than $1 million in annual sales to collect sales taxes that currently go mostly unpaid. Having online retailers collect sales taxes would be more fair to brick-and-mortar stores that currently face a price disadvantage since customers can save several percent by buying online; it would also restore billions of dollars a year in funding to state and local governments. And since poor people often don't have internet access or credit cards, closing this loophole would actually make taxation a little bit more progressive.

Needless to say, state and local funding and eliminating a loophole that disadvantages poor people are not likely to be House Republican priorities, and even as Walmart and Amazon support the bill in addition to a host of small business owners, groups wanting to keep the loophole intact are lined up yelling about how it will impose a burden on business, and trying to make the Senate votes seem ... not totally legitimate:

?There?s a lot of pressure from the state-level governors and lawmakers and those sort of folks to push this thing through and sometimes that runs up the vote total higher than you might? see on a purely partisan issue, [Americans for Prosperity policy director James] Valvo said.

You know, just running up the vote, like some of these votes somehow mean less than they should because governors and state legislators supported this. As if it's just that easy to get more than 60 Senate votes four times over.

While Republicans don't typically care about state and local revenue, though, they will be hearing from business owners in their districts, which is the argument that has a chance of getting through to them. That's probably why House Republican leadership isn't outright rejecting consideration of the bill. It won't be a quick process, though. This bill would start in the House Judiciary Committee, which will have its hands full as it's also taking the lead on immigration. Most of all, Republicans are going to have a tough time figuring out what to do on a bill that has substantial business support but also business opposition, and substantial business support specifically within many of their districts, but also opposition from groups, like Americans for Prosperity, to which House Republicans are traditionally obedient. So look for them to slow-walk this one while they try to figure out how much punishment they'll face from anti-tax extremists for passing it or from local business owners for not passing it.

Source: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/05/06/1207264/-Online-sales-tax-loophole-to-get-final-Senate-vote-face-House-Republican-delays

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