A bipartisan bill was introduced in response to the US Supreme Court's Wayfair decision this past June. In that decision, the Supreme Court ruled that certain remote sellers should remit taxes for multiple states, not just their home state. However, with the massive complexity of tax law surrounding each individual state, the Supreme Court advised Congress to simplify things.
This new bill, called the Online Sales Simplicity and Small Business Relief Act provides a federal exemption for businesses with less than $10 million dollars in gross sales in the preceding calendar year. This bill (HR 6824) also prevents retroactive billing from any time previous to the Wayfair decision (June 21, 2018). Finally, the bill helps prevents states from forcing any sales tax collection duties until 2019.
The ultimate goal of the bill is obvious according to sponsor Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis), "Our bill will protect small businesses and Internet entrepreneurs from excessive regulatory burdens". Currently this bill is the third proposal to be introduced in the House since the Wayfair decision. However, while Congress grapples with the best route towards simplicity, small businesses must wade through a long bevvy of rules. Currently there are about 10,000 tax jurisdictions in the USA. These jurisdictions also interact with each other on multiple levels. That means that a small business in one state, who sells to an out of state client, may need to understand foreign tax codes for state, county, and city taxes.
.png?width=1200&height=628&name=2023%20logo%20with%20SOC%20and%20clearly%20rated%20(2).png "2023 logo with SOC and clearly rated (2)")