Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Lawmaker unabated in push to support federal change to taxing online sales

A Nevada lawmaker is pushing the Legislature to support the Marketplace Fairness Act, a piece of federal legislation that could come up again this year.

Sen. Joyce Woodhouse, D-Henderson, has been encouraging fellow lawmakers since at least 2013 to urge Congress to pass the national measure allowing taxes to be collected on local sales by out-of-state retailers.

“This is not a partisan issue,” she said Tuesday during a hearing for Senate Joint Resolution 5. “This is about leveling the playing field for our local businesses on Main Street and about providing revenue for our state, schools and local governments.”

The most recent version of the Marketplace Fairness Act died when the session ended in January. The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Michael Enzi, R-Wyo, has been working on the legislation for many years and intends to reintroduce it this session, his spokesman Max D’Onofrio said.

Opponents say it would be difficult to implement based on states’ varying tax codes, while supporters call it a method of putting lost sales tax dollars back into state budgets.

Nevada Sen. Joyce Woodhouse

Nevada Sen. Joyce Woodhouse

Gov. Brian Sandoval supports the Marketplace Fairness Act, one of several efforts in Congress that have sought to solve the issue of states missing out on taxes from online sales.

“The governor is hopeful that the Marketplace Fairness Act will be debated in Washington, D.C.,” Sandoval spokeswoman Mari St. Martin said in an emailed statement. “He has let congressional leadership know that he fully supports the measure and sees it as a common-sense tax issue.”

During the National Governors Association State of the States Address in late January, Sandoval said the issue garnered broad bipartisan support.

“Affirming states’ ability to collect sales tax from online purchases — the time has come to put this long-standing issue to rest and pass legislation that allows states to collect revenue already owed but currently uncollectable,” Sandoval said during the speech.

A 1992 Supreme Court decision prevents state governments from requiring remote retailers to collect tax on in-state sales.

No action was taken on the resolution Tuesday. The committee heard from business and local government representatives who spoke in favor of the resolution.

Woodhouse did not return requests for comment.

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