Tax Law Commons^™

The Internet Tax Freedom Act At 25, Walter Hellerstein, Andrew D. Appleby

Scholarly Works

In October 1998, Congress enacted the Internet Tax Freedom Act (ITFA), a temporary three-year “moratorium” on the enactment of new state and local “taxes on Internet access” and on “multiple or discriminatory taxes on electronic commerce.” After extending the act temporarily several times, Congress, in 2016, finally and controversially struck the language temporarily extending the act, thereby making it permanent.

With its idiosyncratic legislative history and statutory language, as well as the recent attention it has received in connection with legal challenges to digital services and analogous taxes, we thought it would be appropriate to commemorate ITFA’s 25th birthday by …

Taxing Remote Sales In The Digital Age: A Global Perspective, Walter Hellerstein

Scholarly Works

This Article addresses three fundamental questions raised by the taxation of remote sales in the digital age from a global perspective, but focuses on the implications, if any, of the answers to these questions in the global context for the U.S. subnational retail sales tax. First, should remote sales be taxed under a consumption tax? Second, if the answer to the first question is “yes,” where should such sales be taxed? Third, how can remote sales be taxed effectively under a consumption tax in the digital age?4

The Law Of Sales Taxes In A Cyberspace Economy, Walter Hellerstein

Scholarly Works

This article focuses on three questions of state sales’ tax:

(1) What is the basic structure of states’ sales tax laws and how do these laws apply to electronic commerce?

(2) What are the existing federal constitutional restraints on the states’ power to impose sales taxes and how do those restraints limit the states’ ability to apply their laws to electronic commerce?

(3) What are the restraints on Congress – to whom this commission’s recommendations will be directed – in legislating to limit or expand state taxing power, or otherwise enact rules governing taxation of electronic commerce?