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Marketplace Fairness Act May Help Clear Muddy Tax Waters
With my mom probably one of a handful of people who haven't made an Internet purchase, I think it is fair to say that we have all seen certain online retailers almost bragging that there is no sales tax on merchandise ordered from their e-store. As I write, I observe the following on a national electronics retailer's website: “No Sales Tax & Free Shipping on Qualifying Orders.” The first question this raises is whether the “qualifying order” language refers to the shipping, the sales tax or both. The second is: Can these e-tailers work this magic to make an otherwise taxable event, nontaxable. If the answer was yes, we would all be fighting for their talents to be applied to other areas of the tax law. In reality, they are simply muddying the waters, but clarity may be on the way in the unlikely form of federal legislation.
Understanding the Sales And Use Tax Picture
While, I can't answer the free shipping issue, as a tax professional I can confirm that many, including some who may be your clients, are being misled if they believe that Web purchases are tax free. Whether or not the e-tailer is obligated to collect the sales tax does not relieve the purchaser from owing his or her state's corresponding use tax. The notion that Internet purchases are “tax free” is one that practitioners have had to dissuade their clients of ever since the 1998 passage of the Internet Tax Freedom Act. While the Act played an important role in largely prohibiting the states from taxing Internet access, it in no way restricted a state's ability to require an e-tailer to collect sales tax under certain circumstances and correspondingly apply the use tax where no sales tax collection effort was made ' whether or not collection was required by the e-tailer.
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