The Wall Street Journal reports that Republican governors are dropping
their opposition to imposing sales taxes on online purchases in order to
raise revenue for their state governments. The first breakthrough was
New Jersey Governor
Chris Christie, who cut a deal with
Amazon to
collect sales tax in return for state financial support for new
distribution facilities. The
National Conference of State Legislatures
estimates that states could receive an additional $23 billion in
revenues if all online purchases were subject to sales tax. Virginia,
Texas and Nevada--all states with Republican governors--have done
similar deals with Amazon.
According to the article, the
Republican Governors Association opposed
online sales taxes as late as last February. Republican Senator
Lamar
Alexander and Democrat
Dick Durbin are using the change in attitude to
build support for a bill they've co-sponsored that would require online
merchants to collect sales tax. Amazon supports the bill, but most other
online-only retailers oppose it.
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