Marketplace Fairness Act - Essay Example

Market Fairness Act of Market Fairness Act izes each member under the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement i.e. the multi-state agreement for the administration and the collection of sales and use of taxes adopted on 12, November 2002 to require all sellers not qualifying for a small-seller exception that is applicable to those sellers whose annual gross receipts in total U.S remote sales are not exceeding $1 million to collect and remit sales and use taxes per the agreement, as illustrated in the Internet Tax Fairness Act of 2001.

In the bill remote sales is defined as goods or services sold into a state in which he is not allowed to pay, collect or remit state or local sales and use taxes unless provided in the act. In case the remote seller uses the CSP and there is an error he/she is forgiven if there is a debt however CSP is not liable if the inaccurate information is fed into it and also both the remote seller and the CSP are not liable if the error is as a result of software provided by state. However the remote seller is liable is does not use the CSP.

The act has effect on the remote sellers in that the MFA must pass and become effective law, states that require collection of sales tax must be a member of Streamlined Sales and Use Sax agreement, publish a notice that it is participating in the act, the remote seller must have a minimum of $1 million dollars in remote sales in United State, that the State will provide tax certified software provider and that the remote seller may use the CSP to calculate sales tax collections and the remote seller should remit collected tax to the appropriate state (United States, 115).

This bill was passed by Senate with 70% of the vote in the spring agitating that this could become the law of the land. This is on the basis that small businesses are economic backbone of the state and nation (United States, 108). They provide jobs, economic growth, aid support in the communities they serve the loss of customers to the internet stores who sell goods and services at cheaper prices has lead to loss of customers hence higher unemployment, slow growth in the economy, underfunded charities and state and government receiving less revenue while more and more people want assistance.

As stated in the Digital Goods and Services Tax Fairness Act of 2011, the house of the Representative has not yet voted for the bill nor has it set date to vote it in. As much as this bill has not passed the House of Representatives it’s doubtful that Congress will not pass some form of legislation that will enable the states capture sale taxes from remote sellers. This bill can be referred to as ObamaCare’s evil twin since it has a lot in common. ObamaCare failed due to the difficulty of integrate all the software since it proved to b e complex.

Federal government spent over $700 million and took 3 years to integrate the government software and up to date it’s still unmitigated disaster. MFA would require small business to install complex software and more require them do it in a no budget and within a period of six months. This could be expensive and time consuming to government audits. MFA software is complex and costly for business to integrate since it does not just require integration into online shopping carts and custom but also related application programs that require often upgrading at high costs (Linwu, Aiken, Wang, and Wibowo, 276).

This software more so cannot handle multi-channel sales, catalogue sales or mail order sales which are essential to livelihoods of tens of thousands of small business. ObamaCare website has many security and flaws problem and the expert warn that it is not safe. Comparing this to MFA software it how sure is we that with its introduction it would be safe? This could cause losses and also the increase products prices requiring the government to induce prices of different product. This is seen with the increase health insurance with introduction of ObamaCare (United States, 155).

Proponents of MFA claim that the integration of the software is free and easy but in reality it is not. Based on the above challenges the bill has not been passed but still being discussedAs the Congress discuses the bill and feels that there is need to make remote-selling tax collectors, any solution is suppose to be simple enough that mandatory software is not needed and that small business do not face threats from auditsWorks CitedDigital Goods and Services Tax Fairness Act of 2011: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Courts, Commercial and Administrative Law of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, One Hundred Twelfth Congress, First Session, on H.r. 1860, May 23, 2011.

Washington: U.S. G.P.O, 2012. Print.Gu, Linwu, Milam Aiken, Jianfeng Wang, and Kustim Wibowo. "The Influence of Information Control upon On-Line Shopping Behavior." International Journal of Technology and Human Interaction. 7.1 (2011): 56-66. Print.Internet Tax Fairness Act of 2001: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, One Hundred Seventh Congress, First Session on H.r. 2526, September 11, 2001. Washington: U.S. G.P.O, 2001.

PrintUnited States. (2001). Internet Tax Fairness Act of 2001: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, One Hundred Seventh Congress, first session on H.R. 2526, September 11, 2001. Washington: U.S. G.P.O.