Two key Cabinet secretaries – Secretary of the Treasury John Snow and Secretary of Commerce Donald Evans – hope Congress extends further the federal moratorium on Internet-specific taxes which expires this November, at the end of its current three-year extension.
Reuters reported May 16 that the two men wrote to House Judiciary Committee chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin) saying new taxes could delay high speed Internet access. ""Government must not slow the roll-out or usage of Internet services by establishing administrative barriers or imposing new access taxes,'' the two Cabinet leaders wrote.
The current Net tax moratorium doesn't address online sales. Those are now banned under a 1992 Supreme Court ruling barring states from taxing catalog, telephone, and other remote sales, Reuters said. But states looking to close budget deficits or raise cash have tried binding the popular moratorium with the right to impose online sales taxes, the news wire added.
E-tailers have mostly resisted online sales taxes, even with some large brick-and-mortar retailers like Target and Wal-Mart collecting Net sales taxes voluntarily, a practice they began in early February.
