Senators Want to Push Online Sales Tax Bill Through with Senate Budget

As the Senate considers debate on the fiscal year 2014 budget later this week, several Senators are hoping to attach an online sales tax bill to it.

Sens. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., plan to offer an amendment to the budget proposed last week by Senate Budget Committee chairman Patty Murray, D-Wash., that would reduce the deficit by $1.8 trillion over the next decade with $975 billion from spending cuts and $975 billion from tax revenues.

The amendment would consist of the Marketplace Fairness Act, which was introduced last month by a bipartisan group of House and Senate members and would allow states to collect taxes from online purchases.

It is estimated that states lose approximately $23 billion each year from uncollected online sales taxes. Currently many online and catalog retailers do not collect the sales taxes that brick-and-mortar businesses collect.

The National Retail Federation commended the Enzi amendment and urged the Senate to support it.

“The Marketplace Fairness Act is a commonsense piece of legislation necessary to modernize our federal and state understanding of sales tax laws so that they can keep current with real world change in the marketplace,” David French, NRF’s senior vice president of government relations, said in a release. “Leveling the playing field for large and small retailers alike will create a business climate where retailers have a better opportunity to grow and create jobs in a truly competitive marketplace.”

On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-N.V., said that the Senate will work “for as long as it takes” this week to complete the 2014 budget resolution and a fiscal year 2013 stopgap spending bill. The current continuing resolution expires March 27.

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