Online Amnesty Program Aims to Boost Tax Rolls

Part of an occasional series of stories on how states are overhauling tax codes to adapt to a new economy.

More than half the states with sales taxes are using a temporary amnesty program to corral scofflaw online businesses into their tax systems, just in time to reap sales taxes from the upcoming holiday shopping season.

In the complicated world of online sales, small businesses often use a “marketplace facilitator,” like Amazon’s Marketplace service, to promote goods and fill orders. But the complexity also means that they often don’t pay their sales taxes, costing the states as much as $2 billion a year through Amazon Marketplace sales alone.

Overall, states estimate they could collect $26 billion more a year in sales taxes on products sold remotely, online and via mail order. Several states, led by South Dakota in 2016, have passed laws requiring sales tax to be paid by all online sellers when they sell to an in-state buyer.

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