House Subcommittee Vote Would Extend Net Tax Moratorium
A House subcommittee voted yesterday to extend the current moratorium on Internet access taxes permanently and to extend a five-year moratorium on multiple and discriminatory taxes on e-commerce. The decision now goes to the full House Judiciary Committee.Marketers applauded the House Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law's decision.
"A permanent moratorium on Internet access taxes is a victory for the development of online commerce," Frank Julian, operating vice president and tax counsel at Federated Department Stores Inc. and chairman of the Direct Marketing Association's Use Tax Steering Committee, said in a statement. "We support this extension … while Congress separately continues to work out a practical way to substantially simplify the more than 7,600 varying sales tax codes."
The decision to resolve the access moratorium issue separates "the remote sales tax question from the moratorium," DMA president/CEO H. Robert Wientzen said in a statement. "This rightly creates two distinct legislative agendas that are not held hostage to one another."
