Sales tax revenue
Buying online
Regarding “Taxes big reason online shopping is killing brick and mortar” (HoustonChronicle. com, Sept. 25), the article by Chris Tomlinson illustrates the one-sided nature of our current tax system for retailers and the generally untold impact it has on American communities. As the article correctly asserts, Congress continues to avoid voting on legislation to fix this issue that would return billions of dollars to our communities. For more than 20 years Congress has shirked its responsibility and now the courts may be the best way to resolve this problem and modernize sales tax collection for today’s multichannel marketplace, creating transactional equality for all retailers, both physical and digital.
When communitybased retailers lose sales to online-only retailers because of a price disadvantage, it can drive them out of business and threaten local economies nationwide. The longer we have to wait for a solution, the more communities will be negatively impacted. In Texas alone, lost sales tax revenues are estimated at $22 billion over the next four years.
With 70 percent of Americans supporting legislation that simplifies online sales tax collection (according to a August 2014 poll by Opinion Research Organization) and evens the playing field, Congress should take the lead. But if they don’t, it looks like the courts will. Fixing this antiquated system is not only the right thing to do for the retail industry, but for the American economy and our communities.
Tom McGee, president and CEO, International Council of
Shopping Centers , New York
Total overhaul
As Chris Tomlinson explains it so well, our nationwide system of establishing and collecting sales tax is outdated and unfair. However, that is just one tax that is unfair; most if not all of our taxing programs are outdated and unfair. Income tax policies have so many loopholes, exemptions and special interest benefits as to be among the most unfair, archaic and broken tax policies in our country. Property taxes, as everyone knows, are widely uneven between farm property, residential property, commercial property and industrial property with exemptions, inequitable appraisals and special rule players such as Municipal Utility Districts. And our employment taxation policies including Social Security, unemployment taxes and taxes for Medicare and Medicaid are neither fair nor adequate. Lastly, we have so many special taxes or fees from gasoline taxes to toll roads to airport taxes that are often overlooked when considering our overall revenue system.
We need a top to bottom overhaul of our complete governmental revenue system that provides not just equity and fairness but a system that must be designed to provide adequate resources to fund the operations of our government, to make investments in infrastructure and to provide for the common good of our citizens. We need a unified system between federal, state and local governmental entities that is equitable not just across income levels but also equitable across states and counties. We also need a system that is a “self collecting” system to the extent possible. And we need to eliminate the IRS as a collection and enforcement agency.
Bill Turney, Houston