Heidi Alexander: “last week the Senator from Wyoming, Mr. Enzi, and the Senator from Illinois, the Democratic whip, introduced a piece of…”

“last week the Senator from Wyoming, Mr. Enzi, and the Senator from Illinois, the Democratic whip, introduced a piece of legislation which is called the Marketplace Fairness Act. In doing so, I think they solved a problem that has persisted in almost every State in the Union and that Congress has had a difficult time dealing with for the last 10 years. The problem is what do we do about State sales taxes which everybody owes every time they make a purchase. If you buy a television set at the local appliance store in Tennessee you owe Tennessee sales tax. If you buy it online you still owe the sales tax. The difference has been that the local retailer is required to collect the sales tax, and does, and sends it to the State, but the online vendor, let's say Amazon, is not required to collect the sales tax and so it does not. So, like most individuals--I bought a television set from Amazon earlier this year. At the end of the year, I would need to file a form with our State government and say I bought it, acknowledge that they didn't collect the sales tax, tell the State I owe the sales tax on my purchase, and pay it. The truth is most Americans do not do that. That is a $23 billion a year tax avoidance, a great big tax loophole. One may ask why has that loophole not been closed.…”