On the recordMarch 22, 2013
I will yield a couple minutes to myself. Different States have different regimes. Some States decide they want to have income tax. Other States have big property taxes. Other States say they want to have sales tax but not income tax. There are many States with no income tax and those States are States some people gravitate to because they do not want to pay State income taxes. But I think States should have the right to choose their own taxation system, and we should not pass legislation which tends to force a certain State taxation system on the others. That is what this legislation does. It basically forces all States to have sales taxes, whether they want one or not. In my State of Montana, sales tax is anathema. Nobody touches a sales tax. What this says is: OK. You can have a sales tax, eventually, in my State, because we don't have a sales tax, and, therefore, businesses in Montana don't collect sales tax, but they will have to collect tax on sales for other States. In effect, we are going to be forced to have one and we don't want one. We are going to fight it fiercely. Second, basically, the language says, I will read it to you, allowing States to `` . . . enforce State and local use tax laws and collect taxes already owed under State law on remote sales by the amounts provided in such legislation for those purposes. . . .…
