The days of tax free internet shopping may be coming to an end. According to CNET, democratic Senator, Dick Durbin is aiming to introduce a legislation called "the main street fairness act" that puts tax on online shopping. According to multilingual-search.com, 94% of Americans use online retailing, which counts for most of their population. Durbin's plan, that will take place after Easter break, consists of applying new sales tax to any online purchase, bought out of state. Popular online stores such as Amazon.com and overstock.com will no doubt be negatively affected by these changes.
"Why should out-of-state companies that sell their products online have an unfair advantage over Main Street bricks-and-mortar businesses? Out-of-state companies that aren't paying their fair share of taxes are sticking Illinois residents and businesses with the tab," explained Durbin.
Because not all out-of-state internet purchases are taxed like they are are in shopping centers, Dick Durbin explains that this gives an "unfair advantage" to online retailers. Although, with the many thousands of different tax bands that exist in the USA, online retailers are finding it hard to keep up with the many rules that apply within these bands. For example, in New Jersey, bottled water and cookies do not have any sales tax, but bottled soda and candy do include sales tax.
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