The Hill News

 “All May Park, All Must Pay.”  That sign adorns parking meters in cities across America, sending the clear, concise message that everyone is treated equally. Whether car or truck, sedan or coup, Ford or Chevy, the rule applies and the fee is owed.  No special deals, no loop-holes; it’s simple: if you park, you pay.  The kind of equal treatment afforded city parkers is exactly what Main Street retailers have long been denied and what bipartisan legislation introduced this week in the Senate seeks to correct.

 A sale is a sale, whether it happens at a store on Main Street or with a click online. States have long required that sales tax be paid on both purchases. However, while Main Street retailers are obli! gated to collect sales tax on each purchase, their online peers are often not. So while a tax is still legally owed in both instances, it is not always collected by online retailers. This results in a perceived price advantage of up to 10 percent for some online retailers over their Main Street competitors. Make no mistake, the tax is still owed, but because of a decades old loophole, the obligation instead falls to consumers to maintain records of online purchases and pay the sales tax when they file their state income taxes for that year.  Not surprisingly, most fail to do so.

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