Nebraska leading establishment of internet sales tax compact

Nebraska has joined with 17 other states to begin nudging online retailers to collect taxes on items purchased over the Web. The Streamlined Sales Tax Project (SSTP), comprising state tax officials, met recently in Chicagoto encourage retailers to collect sales taxes. States Pushing For Web Sales-Tax Collection, TechWeb.com. 12 states plan to begin a pilot voluntary program this fall. Some Congressmen are ready to back the states' efforts to tax internet sales. State and Local governments have their eyes on the $15billion in lost sales tax revenue they believe they are "losing" from internet sales. The U.S. Supreme Court 13 years ago, declared a moratorium on remote sales tax collections across state lines Quill Corp v North Dakota 504 US 298; Congressional action is necessary to reverse it. The SSTP attempts to do this by making sales tax collection more unifrom and streamlined. Nebraska has joined this group LB46 2004. Other states have tried to collect sales taxes from internet merchants who also have physical presences in the collecting states, the "brick and click" or "entity isolation rule." California ordered Borders to pay back taxes to the state, because customers who purchased book from Borders.com returned books in the company's bricks-and-mortar locations. Ohio, Pennsylvania and Connecticut however have held entity isolation still exempts the merchant from paying state sales taxes. The U.S. Supreme Court denied review of the Pennsylvania and Connecticut cases without comments on merit