eBay Main Street

The National Taxpayers Union (NTU), a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting lower taxes and smaller government, released a statement in opposition to the introduction of the latest Internet sales tax bill introduced in the United States Senate yesterday morning. Pete Sepp, Executive Vice President of the NTU, expressed his concern for the new sales tax burdens this bill would place on small online businesses and worried that “Americans on the receiving end of this legislation’s teeth will still feel serious pain”. NTU continues to be a strong advocate for Internet retailers in the debate over online sales tax policies. Click to view their statement and to learn more about NTU.

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PayPal received approval from the Royal Bank of India (RBI) for increasing the transaction limit for export-related payment to merchants in India, from the original USD 500 per transaction, to USD 3000 per transaction.

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eBay’s Government Relations team hosted Andrew Khaw, Senior Director of the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), at eBay Inc.’s North campus in San Jose, California last week. IDA, one of eBay Inc.’s key regulators in Singapore, visited to discuss recent e-commerce trends, specifically, the innovative services being developed by PayPal to support consumers’ 21st Century shopping needs. Discussion also focused on IDA\'s forward-looking initiatives on broadband infrastructure improvements and helping to build better digital payments infrastructure to support accelerating innovation in this area. Read more.

Happy Veteran’s Day and a tremendous “thank you” to all who are serving and all who have served. The Government Relations team at eBay Inc. joins the rest of the country in acknowledging your sacrifice today. We salute you.

Leigh Bader is the proud owner of the Pine Oaks Golf Course in South Easton, Massachusetts, a little town about forty-five minutes south of Boston, where he runs one of the largest pro shops in the nation. Leigh developed a love of golf in college while attending the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. It was there that he started his career, working as an assistant pro at a local golf course. After living and traveling around the country, Leigh settled down in South Easton, where he worked his way up through the organization to reach his current position as the owner of the course. Read more.

Bruce Hahn, President of the American Homeowners Grassroots Alliance (AHGA), made the following statement of support for Senator Wyden’s pro-Internet retailer resolution, S.Res. 309: “Requiring small online businesses to keep track of potentially 15,000 sales tax jurisdictions nationwide would not only be extremely burdensome and costly for the small retailer struggling to survive, but it would forever change the open ecommerce marketplace that consumers currently enjoy.” To learn more about AHGA, visit its website.

Tod Cohen, Vice President for Government Relations and Deputy General Counsel at eBay Inc., made the following statement upon the introduction of the ‘Marketplace Fairness Act (MFA)’ by Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY), Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL): “This is another Internet sales tax bill that fails to protect small business retailers using the Internet and will unbalance the playing field between giant retailers and small business competitors. It does not make sense to expand Internet sales tax burdens on small businesses at a time when we want entrepreneurs to create jobs and economic activity”.