On Monday, June 15, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) introduced H.R. 2775, the Remote Transactions Parity Act of 2015 (“RTPA”). This bill, cosponsored by Rep. Steve Womack (R-AR), would provide a level playing field between traditional “brick-and-mortar” retailers and remote sellers with respect to the collection of state sales taxes. It does this by giving states the authority to certify software which remote sellers can integrate into their online stores, which handles determining what sales tax to charge for buyers and collecting/remitting it. States are required to provide this software to remote sellers at no cost. Finally, the RTPA gradually phases in which sellers must collect and remit sales taxes based on their gross annual receipts. This phase-in should help alleviate administrative confusion and give smaller sellers time to prepare for the change.
Providing a level playing field between brick-and-mortar and e-commerce retailers not only helps keep traditional stores in business, but also will help bring much needed and owed revenue to the states which is currently going uncollected. The RTPA does not create a new tax, but simply gives states the ability to collect on sales taxes that they are owed but are not able to get.
NAR sent a letter of support thanking Reps. Chaffetz and Womack for introducing this important legislation, and joined an industry coalition letter in support of the bill as well.