Amazon on
Wednesday reiterated its call for federal legislation that would pave the way
for states to begin requiring online sellers from out of state to remit sales
taxes, urging members of the Senate Commerce Committee to rally behind the
Marketplace Fairness Act.
Misener told lawmakers that the bill
would not create a new tax, but instead facilitate the collection of one that
is already due, but goes largely unpaid.
Under the bill, only states that
took steps to simplify their tax codes would be eligible to require retailers
to remit the taxes. But opponents of the bill have countered that the
simplification provisions in the current version of the bill don't go nearly
far enough to harmonize the roughly 9,600 state and local tax codes across the
country.
