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Marketplace Fairness Act is unfair

The Herald recently argued that the so-called Marketplace Fairness Act should move forward (Nov. 18). This is wrong for many reasons. I say this as both an online and a brick-and-mortar retailer.

The United States has nearly 10,000 taxing jurisdictions. Forcing compliance with arcane tax laws from 10,000 other municipalities would be crippling to any small business, online or otherwise.

The bill exempts stores earning less than $500,000 in revenue. This threshold is absurdly low and clearly not designed by anyone who has ever operated a business. A store doing $500K annually is probably netting $50,000. While that might amount to a decent living in a small town, it doesn’t make for an Internet powerhouse with extra cash to spend on compliance.

Why should Texas be allowed to reach – unconstitutionally – across state borders to force a Durango retailer to comply with its tax laws?

Main Street retailers are being sold false hope with the fake notion of “fairness.” We are told that once Internet stores are forced to collect sales tax from other states, the playing field will be level.

Fellow brick-and-mortar retailers: This is a ruse. A smokescreen. A misdirection. There are myriad reasons people order online instead of locally, but saving 5 percent on tax is very low on the list. People buy online primarily because of convenience and, to a lesser degree, better availability, better selection and better return policies. Levying a new online tax won’t level any playing fields because tax is not what skews the playing field in the first place.

So the question to ask is who benefits from this new tax? Who has been lobbying hardest for its passage? Not consumers. Not smaller online retailers. Not Main Street retailers. It’s the Internet giants. They already have the multi-state tax infrastructure in place, so squeezing out the huge majority of smaller sellers strengthens their market share. This may be great for Best Guy but it’s not great for consumers or the economy. It clearly has nothing to do with “fairness.” And it is not good for Main Street.

John Fowler

Durango



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