Sales Tax
Amazon Cuts Another Deal, Will Collect Tax in Tennessee
Amazon, the nation’s largest online retailer, agreed Thursday (October 6) to begin collecting sales taxes from Tennessee residents in 2014, the Chattanooga Times Free Press reports . It’s the second time in a month that the company has struck a deal to collect sales taxes in an individual state, something it had refused to do […]
Amazon Deal With California May Set Precedent for Online Tax Collection
After years of refusing to collect sales tax from online purchases, Amazon.com has agreed to do it in California. Retailers and state governments elsewhere are hoping for similar treatment. California braced for a fight this year when its budget deal included a provision to force online retailers — Amazon.com by far the most prominent among […]
Amazon: We’ll Bring Jobs If California Drops Sales Tax
The retailer Amazon is stepping up its already aggressive lobbying effort to stop a new California policy that requires online companies to collect sales taxes on purchases made by Californians. The Internet giant, which has been vowing to bankroll a June 2012 referendum that would repeal the tax, now is dangling the prospect of 1,000 […]
Sales Tax Holidays Arrive, Despite Economists’ Grumblings
This weekend begins a summertime rite of passage for some states: the sales tax holiday. Some 17 states this year are temporarily waiving their sales taxes on clothing, backpacks and other items deemed essential for students headed back to school. Though sales tax holidays are popular with shoppers, economists have long complained that the events […]
State Government Shutdowns: A Dangerous Game to Play
Office of Governor Mark Dayton Minnesota isn’t accustomed to budgetary games of chicken, but the combination of a Democratic governor (Mark Dayton, above) and a Republican legislature has enhanced the prospects for a last-minute showdown this year. In early July 2005, artillery massed on the Iowa side of the state’s border with Minnesota, ready to […]
Amazon Gains Upper Hand in South Carolina Tax Break Battle
A war among giant retailers that animated South Carolina politics the past few months has tipped in the direction of one of the most aggressive competitors: Amazon.com. In mid-May, the South Carolina House reversed itself and voted for a tax break aimed at attracting an Amazon distribution center in the town of Cayce, in Lexington […]
Big Fights Over Using Sales Tax for Roads
FUNDING FIGHTS: In two states, it’s the governor vs. the legislator over the rules that control road funding. Utah lawmakers overrode the veto of Governor Gary Herbert on a proposal to designate 30 percent of new sales tax revenue, or roughly $60 million next year, for road building, reports the Salt Lake Tribune . Herbert […]
Texas Struggles to Fill a Texas-Sized Budget Hole
AUSTIN, Texas — Last week, advocates for people with disabilities rallied at the state Capitol here to protest budget cuts. Eleven, including nine in wheelchairs, were arrested and charged with criminal trespass. This week, another group is organizing a far bigger rally that organizers say will draw more than 10,000 education advocates to the […]
Two Governors See Need for Major Tax Increases
As Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy prepares to introduce his first state budget today (February 16), The Hartford Courant , the state’s largest newspaper, bluntly describes the plan’s effects. “If you earn a middle-class salary, drive a car, get a haircut, buy clothing, sleep in a hotel, smoke cigarettes or drink beer, your taxes would go […]
Amazon Blasts Texas Over Sales Tax Grab
Texas Governor Rick Perry has made a name for himself by mocking other states’ tax policies. Just this week, he denounced an Illinois decision earlier this year that raised taxes by as much as 66 percent, telling lawmakers in his annual state of the state speech that Texas, unlike Illinois, is the ” envy of […]
Sales, Income Taxes Drive Modest State Revenue Increases
State tax revenues showed slight improvement in the third quarter of this year but they still have a long way to go to make up for the losses incurred by the recession, according to a report yesterday from the U.S. Census Bureau. Overall, state tax revenues increased 4.75 percent over the third quarter of 2009, […]
States Look to Santa for Revenue Gift
Heading into the critical holiday shopping season, state officials are reporting steady although modest gains in monthly tax collections, a sign that the nascent economic recovery is gaining strength after three years of plunging sales tax revenues that decimated state budgets. November and December are the crucial months for state sales tax collections, which […]