Internet Commerce and State Sales and Use Taxes

PDF Version Also Available for Download.

Description

State governments rely on sales and use taxes for approximately one-third (32.3%) of their total tax revenue – or approximately $174 billion in FY2000. Local governments derived 16.4% of their tax revenue or $51.6 billion from local sales and use taxes in FY1999. Both state and local sales taxes are collected by vendors at the time of transaction and are levied at a percentage of a product’s retail price. Alternatively, use taxes are not collected by vendors if they do not have nexus (loosely defined as a physical presence) in the consumer’s state. Consumers are required to remit use taxes … continued below

Physical Description

16 Pages.

Creation Information

Maguire, Steven January 18, 2002.

Context

This report is part of the collection entitled: Congressional Research Service Reports and was provided by the UNT Libraries Government Documents Department to the UNT Digital Library, a digital repository hosted by the UNT Libraries. It has been viewed 31 times. More information about this report can be viewed below.

Who

People and organizations associated with either the creation of this report or its content.

Author

Publisher

Provided By

UNT Libraries Government Documents Department

Serving as both a federal and a state depository library, the UNT Libraries Government Documents Department maintains millions of items in a variety of formats. The department is a member of the FDLP Content Partnerships Program and an Affiliated Archive of the National Archives.

Contact Us

What

Descriptive information to help identify this report. Follow the links below to find similar items on the Digital Library.

Description

State governments rely on sales and use taxes for approximately one-third (32.3%) of their total tax revenue – or approximately $174 billion in FY2000. Local governments derived 16.4% of their tax revenue or $51.6 billion from local sales and use taxes in FY1999. Both state and local sales taxes are collected by vendors at the time of transaction and are levied at a percentage of a product’s retail price. Alternatively, use taxes are not collected by vendors if they do not have nexus (loosely defined as a physical presence) in the consumer’s state. Consumers are required to remit use taxes to their taxing jurisdiction. However, compliance with this requirement is quite low. Because of the low compliance, many observers suggest that the expansion of the internet as a means of transacting business across state lines, both from business to consumer (B to C) and from business to business (B to B), threatens to diminish the ability of state and local governments to collect sales and use taxes. Congress has a role in this issue because commerce between parties in different states conducted over the Internet falls under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. Congress can either take an active or passive role in the “Internet tax” debate. This report intends to clarify important issues in the Internet tax debate.

Physical Description

16 Pages.

Language

Item Type

Identifier

Unique identifying numbers for this report in the Digital Library or other systems.

Collections

This report is part of the following collection of related materials.

Congressional Research Service Reports

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is the public policy research arm of Congress. This legislative branch agency works exclusively for Members of Congress, their committees and their staff. This collection includes CRS reports from the mid-1960's through 2018—covering a variety of topics from agriculture to foreign policy to welfare.

What responsibilities do I have when using this report?

When

Dates and time periods associated with this report.

Creation Date

  • January 18, 2002

Added to The UNT Digital Library

  • Dec. 5, 2006, 9:03 a.m.

Description Last Updated

  • Nov. 17, 2015, 1:26 p.m.

Usage Statistics

When was this report last used?

Yesterday: 0
Past 30 days: 0
Total Uses: 31

Where

Geographical information about where this report originated or about its content.

Place Name

Publication Place

Map Information

  • map marker Place Name coordinates. (May be approximate.)
  • Repositioning map may be required for optimal printing.

Mapped Locations

Interact With This Report

Here are some suggestions for what to do next.

Start Reading

PDF Version Also Available for Download.

International Image Interoperability Framework

IIF Logo

We support the IIIF Presentation API

Maguire, Steven. Internet Commerce and State Sales and Use Taxes, report, January 18, 2002; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metacrs9285/: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.

Back to Top of Screen