I do not often get invited to meet with politicians about pending
legislation, but next week I will have the rare pleasure of sitting down to discuss the Marketplace Fairness Act. In preparation for the meeting, I
asked Terri Alpert, an active opponent of the bill, to educate me about what is
at stake for small businesses. Alpert is a well-respected CEO in Connecticut
who has built two top-shelf brands (Uno
Alla Volta and Artisan
Table) that do over $14 million in sales, and employ more than fifty people
year-round. If this
bill has her spooked, I need to know why.
She
cited the following changes as the minimum required to make the legislation
palatable for small companies:
Standardized definitions of what is taxable and what is
not across all states.Standardized tax holidays.
One rate per state.
One standardized tax return.
Audits only by the home state.
