Eric Menhart Comments on Internet Sales Tax Issues
Posted on April 22, 2009
Filed Under Law, Technology
You may have noticed that the recent economic troubles are leading most folks to tighten their belts and rethink their spending. Many are also considering new sources of income. State and local governments are no different. The question as to whether States can legally collect sales taxes from online transactions is attracting attention, particularly given the hard economic times and the beginning of a new Congress with many new faces.
Eric was recently quoted in two articles addressing the topic. The first, in Forbes.com, was entitled “Web Sales Tax Looms.” FierceCIO also brought the issue to it’s readers attention in Debate Looms for Web Sales Tax.
Eric wrote an extended article entitled Taxing the Internet: Analyzing the States’ Plan to Derive Online Sales Revenue that explores the tax issues that are becoming more salient in the current economic and political environment. Published in 2007 by the Journal of State Taxation, the article is an in depth discussion of the legal and political barriers to states’ interest in universally collecting sales taxes on all types of online transactions.