Retail groups not giving up on online sales tax

Retail groups aren’t giving up on getting an online sales tax measure passed into law this year, despite opposition from the highest level of the House GOP.

{mosads}Hundreds of individual businesses and trade associations sent a letter to Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Wednesday, urging the House to take up legislation before the end of 2014.

The groups made the case that there’s no need for further study on the issue, and that Boehner’s home state of Ohio is among the states to pledge a tax cut when the Marketplace Fairness Act becomes law.

“Locally-based retailers and wholesaler-distributors and their employees across the country expect Congress to make 2014 the last year in which Main Street businesses are burdened with a government-sanctioned price disadvantage, compared to their online competitors,” the groups wrote to Boehner. “The time to level the playing field has come.”

A Boehner spokesman said this week that the online sales tax bill, a version of which passed the Senate last year, would not come up in the House in the current lame-duck session.

But the Marketplace Fairness Act also has powerful supporters on both sides of the aisle in the Senate, who have vowed to continue their efforts to get the measure.

Opponents are also lobbying heavily, with eBay urging its sellers to lodge their complaints with lawmakers.