... is ANOTHER damn sales tax. Sales tax is a tremendous portion of the revenue woes faced by Tennessee. For all practical purposes, Tennessee puts all their revenue stream eggs in a basket called sales tax. Other revenue streams are negligible by comparison. Revenue in Tenessee needs to start being derived from some source OTHER than sales tax.

Step Two is right on the money! (not to make a pun or anything!)

RB

I don't get the idea behind giving businesses that aren't located in Tennessee a tax break over the ones that are here. I think that's killing off the local economy in favor of internet sales. Many states already do this so why not make it fair??

I agree with taxing internet sales. Not so much for raising revenue, but for creating a more level playing field for Tennessee businesses.

I wonder how much of Tennessee's economy is hurt simply because we are bordered by so many other states?

It's always a pleasant surprise while shopping other states when a $10 item doesn't cost $11, like here in TN.

Thousands of Tennesseans, including some right here in Roane County, receive part or all of their income from affiliate marketing--"using one website to drive traffic to another" ((link...)).

Some major retailers, including Amazon, have canceled their affiliate partner programs in states such as New York when they started taxing Internet sales ((link...)), in effect laying off all those marketers, thousands of people and businesses.

Thus Internet taxation has resulted in significant losses of income for companies and individuals who had successfully engaged in affiliate marketing, a multi-billion dollar industry--an estimated $6.5 billion in 2006 ((link...)).

For some years, a decade or so ago, one Roane County company's websites would earn modest amounts (usually $1400/month, $2500/month before Christmas), enough to get by on. This was all without spam or buying keywords, just by a few ads on websites. Most of the profit came from ads for clothing, perfume, sporting goods, and phone services.

At least according to the commission reports, virtually none of the customers were from Tennessee. Out-of-state customers were buying from out-of-state merchants, yet some of the money was ending up right here in Roane County. For most of those years, about half the customers were not even in the United States, yet percentages of their purchases found their way to Tennessee.

Multiply that story by thousands of other affiliate marketers in Tennessee. The negative economic impact can be huge.

Affiliate marketing is still one business that requires minimal investment, can be done from home, and with hard work and intelligent approaches can yield income.

Do we really want to put Tennesseans out of work?

-- OneTahiti

Do you really want to give an emailorder house a tax advantage over a local Roane County business? If we are going to continue to support our state and local governments on the backs of the middle class with a regressive sales tax, we should at least be fair about it and tax everybody the same if they sell into Tennessee.

This loophole needs to be closed. States are in desperate need of the revenue that is being lost and we need fairness in the way it is collected. Just using Amazon for example; why should folks avoid paying tax to this out of state company that is also not adding anything to our local or state economy.
As long as it is left up to the consumer to "voluntarily" pay the the tax on these out of state Internet sales, our state will lose out and we'll be looking for other revenue like the brilliant idea of taxing free hotel/motel breakfasts that is being bandied about.