Enforcement
In 2007, 22 states including New York, California, Ohio and Virginia have included an entry on their state individual income tax return for taxpayers to voluntarily calculate an amount for use tax liability. Taxpayers however have not been so quick to reach into their wallets and forward these taxes to the state. A few of these states have tried another approach by pre-determining the tax liability owed by every taxpayer via a tax table based on the individual’s adjusted gross income. For example, a Michigan taxpayer with $45,000 of income can use the state’s use tax table to estimate his use tax liability as $36. Use of this table is limited, however, to purchases of less than $1,000 and may be challenged during an audit. For purchases over $1,000, the taxpayer must calculate the tax for each item and add this amount to the use tax from the table. States using this method have seen an increase in voluntary compliance over those states that have the taxpayers calculate the use tax themselves.
As the amount of e-commerce sales continues to rise ($34 billion for just the second quarter of 2008) states recognize that the key to collecting these taxes rests not only in educating the individual taxpayer but with coordinating their efforts with other states. Currently, there are 19 full member states and 3 associate member states that belong to the Streamlined Sales Tax Project (SSTP). The SSTP assists states in collection of sales and use tax by registering merchants who charge out-of-state consumers the appropriate state sales tax and remit the tax to the appropriate state through a certified service provider. SSTP has also been in the forefront of an effort to push Congress to amend the laws to make collection of sales tax less burdensome. In fact, in August 2007 a bill was introduced in the House that would have given the states authority to require sellers to collect sales tax on out-of-state sales; however, the bill appears to have never made it out of committee. States may also work with adjacent states via interstate use tax agreements. These agreements allow states to exchange tax audit records from businesses that have shipped goods to out of state consumers. Reciprocal states will then use those records and send a tax bill including penalties and interest to the individual taxpayer.
States have also pursued their collection efforts through the court system. In 2007, a California appeals court ruled that Borders Online owed California sales tax for online purchases that the store failed to collect from 1998 to 1999 since customers were able to return merchandise bought on-line to Border's retail stores in California.
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