Supreme Court considers future of online sales tax
As the U.S. Supreme Court evaluates whether online retailers should collect sales taxes, industry groups continue to urge the court to overturn the tax break adopted in the pre-Internet era. On Tuesday, the court heard oral arguments on a 2016 South Dakota law that requires online merchants with more than $100,000 in sales to state residents, or 200 transactions with state residents, to collect sales tax. The law was struck down last year by South Dakota’s highest court, which cited the Supreme Court’s 1992 Quill Corp. v. North Dakota decision. In that case, the justices said online sellers can only be required to collect sales tax in states where they have a physical presence such as a store, office or warehouse. Part of their reasoning was that there were more than 6,000 state and local sales tax jurisdictions across the country and that the regulations were too complex for a seller to know how much to collect unless they were doing business locally. Click Read More below for additional information.