Image provided by Getty Images (LDProd) Dave WilliamsStaff Writer- Atlanta Business Chronicle
Most
Georgia voters oppose legislation pending in Congress that would let
states collect sales taxes from online purchases made by out-of-state
customers, according to a new poll.
The Marketplace Fairness
Act, which passed the U.S. Senate last year and is now before the House
of Representatives, would do away with a current law that limits states
to collecting sales taxes only on purchases from businesses with a
physical presence inside the state.
Brick-and-mortar retailers
have been pushing for the bill for years as a way to give them a fair
chance to compete with businesses that sell online.
But according to a poll of 400 likely Georgia voters released Tuesday by the National Taxpayers Union,
57 percent “strongly” or “somewhat” oppose the legislation, while 33
percent strongly or somewhat favor the bill. Ten percent were undecided.
“This is the biggest anti-taxpayer proposal that has a chance of passing Congress,” said Pete Sepp, president of the National Taxpayers Union.
The R Street Institute, a free-market think tank, worked with the National Taxpayers Union on the poll.
Christian Camara,
the institute’s state affairs director, said he sympathizes with small
brick-and-mortar business owners worried about losing out to online
retailers who don’t have to collect sales taxes on the merchandise they
sell to out-of-state customers.
But Camara said the proposed
legislation would create a bookkeeping burden that would severely hamper
all but the largest businesses that rely on online sales.
“If
you’re a small- to medium [company] that transacts most of its business
online, you’re going to have to change the system you have to comply
with the law,” he said. “It could be quite a drain on resources, even a
disincentive to get into business.”
The poll found opposition to
the Marketplace Fairness Act across political demographics.
Self-identified Democrats opposed it in slightly larger numbers than
Republicans, 56 percent to 52 percent. An overwhelming 67 percent of
independent voters surveyed said they were against the bill.
Not
surprisingly, 65 percent of voters who said they shop online frequently
opposed the legislation, while 52 percent of those who called
themselves infrequent online shoppers were against it.
The poll was conducted June 2-3 by live telephone interviewing. The margin of error was plus-or-minus 4.9 percent.
