Law Commons^™

Proposal For A National Sales Tax To Incentivize The Collection Of Remote Sales Tax, Timothy Li

Timothy Li

This Essay proposes that Congress adopt a national sales tax at one national rate for interstate sales, but with a credit for each transaction in which an out-of-state vendor remits state sales tax. For states without sales taxes, remote vendors can still choose the state rate of zero percent. For states with sales taxes, the national rate should be set to exceed every state’s sales tax rate. Vendors would no longer be able to avoid sales tax by moving overseas. The proposal further provides numerous incentives for Congress to act now rather than delay, including a new source of national …

Thinking Out Cloud: California State Sales And Use Taxability Of Cloud Computing Transactions, Matthew A. Susson

Matthew A Susson

Confronted with growing budget deficits and decreasing tax bases, states have sought to expand sales tax laws to capture revenue from sales of digital products. Just as states have begun to impose such taxes, however, the shift from downloaded products to cloud-based data and applications—accessible from anywhere in the world—poses new challenges to the states’ ability to reach such transactions with their taxing powers.

Thus far, state governments have taken inconsistent and patchwork approaches towards determining taxability. Rather than supplement or amend state tax codes to address cloud computing transactions directly, they have sought to apply existing provisions dealing with …