Dear Catalog & E-commerce Industry Members:
A flurry of amicus curiae briefs, including one from the ACMA, were filed on December 7th before the Supreme Court in South Dakota, all urging the Court to deny a petition for a Writ of Certiorari. Below are some highlights with links to the actual filings.
- ACMA: “In 2017, the inherent complexity of the process of complying with sales and use taxes in the United States remains burdensome. In many ways, the nationwide sales and use tax system has actually become dramatically more complex….Absent real simplification of the collection process, technology cannot overcome the nature of the fundamental burden on mail order sellers with customers in multiple states and local jurisdictions.”
- Rep. Robert Goodlatte (R-VA), Chair of the House Committee on the Judiciary, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R-WI), Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-CA), Sen. Michael S. Lee (R-AZ), and Rep. Steven J. Chabot (R-OH): “Petitioner seeks to have the Court take this authority from Congress and impose a judicial mandate that for the first time ever would require a vendor residing in another State to collect use tax from its customers in a State in which it has no substantial physical presence. Were the Court to do so, it would have to .. overrule its prior decisions in Quill Corp. v. North Dakota and National Bellas Hess v. Illinois, as well as a long, consistent line of authorities upon which the decisions in those cases rest, and, ultimately, sanction States taxing and regulating the conduct outside of their borders of persons with no physical presence in the State by seeking to tax or regulate that conduct. In short, Petitioner in this case asks the Court to authorize ‘regulation without representation,’ contrary to Constitutional tradition.”
- NetChoice: “The Quill standard allows internet start-ups, as well as small and medium-sized online and brick-and mortar businesses, to exist. It protects them from regulatory burdens that would be both crippling and unfair, and allows them to grow. It provides them with consistency in understanding the tax regulatory framework they must follow….If this Court were to overrule Quill, tens of thousands of small businesses and tens of millions of customers who rely upon their staying in business will be adversely affected.”
- Wayfair, Inc., Overstock.com, Inc., & NewEgg, Inc.: “[South Dakota] seeks to enlist the United States Supreme Court to provide what amounts to an advisory opinion on a barren factual record, contrary to this Court’s proper constitutional role and its carefully-circumscribed jurisdiction. In the process, the State runs roughshod over principles of stare decisis, disregards significant concerns of retroactive liability, and fails to establish facts sufficient for this Court to evaluate the complex and delicate balance between the burdens of imposing nationwide sales and use tax obligations on interstate businesses, on the one hand, and the States’ interest in requiring companies located beyond their borders to serve as the States’ use tax collectors, on the other.”
Links to Other Amici Urging Cert Denial
- National Taxpayers Union Foundation
- Chris Cox (Former Member of Congress and Co-Author of the Internet Tax Freedom Act)
- Americas for Tax Reform
Briefs in Support
While our little TruST coalition has had oversized success as you will see from the attached pleadings, we could be so much more aggressive with additional funding from a larger pool of companies. Case in point: While you can see seven briefs filed on our side of the argument, there were twice as many briefs urging SCOTUS to grant certiary filed on November 1st and 2nd. Click here to access the SCOTUS web page showing all filings.
Greater funding can help us put up a better fight against other states and the our adversaries seeking to rewrite the Quill precedent. Please click here to make your donation to ACMA’s Quill Defense Fund today.