Online sales tax

During a webinar Thursday moderated by the National League of Cities, officials pointed out that the South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc. sales tax case has been remanded by the U.S. Supreme Court back to the South Dakota Supreme Court.

Congress might provide clarity by preventing states any state from imposing retroactive liability.

Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., and co-sponsors of a recently offered bill want to prevent businesses in their states from being forced to collect sales taxes from e-commerce transactions.

With the need for Congressional action lessened, governors and state legislatures can focus on fine tuning their own laws, officials said.

Thursday's 5-4 ruling involves a 2016 law enacted by South Dakota requiring out-of-state e-commerce retailers to collect sales tax if they have more than 200 transactions annually or $100,000 in sales within the state.

States could gain $8 billion to $33.9 billion in additional annual revenue if the high court rules in favor of South Dakota, while a loss would mean the status quo.

Some states don't remit all of the sales tax funds that are due to local governments from e-commerce retailers.