This week, the Wall Street Journal published an editorial saying that Senate leadership was trying to take the Internet Tax Freedom Act hostage by attaching it to the so-called Marketplace Fairness Act.  The article explains that after the House of Representatives passed a permanent extension of the Internet Tax Freedom Act, Senate leadership quickly moved to introduce a bill that would marry the Internet Tax Freedom Act to the Marketplace Fairness Act. 

While the Internet Tax Freedom Act would ban discriminatory taxes on Internet access and ecommerce, the Marketplace Fairness Act would create a new and unprecedented sales tax regime that would impact small tech-enabled businesses and open them up to new compliance and enforcement burdens.  As the editorial pointed out, “not even the bill's principal sponsor, Sen. Mike Enzi (R., Wyo.), was sure how many governments would be free to audit online sellers, or if Web merchants would have to respond to inquiries from America's thousands of municipalities.

To read the editorial and the author’s opinion on the Internet sales tax issues, please visit the Wall Street Journal.