Sales Tax

TRENTON - A sales-tax exemption measure designed to encourage major online retailers to locate in New Jersey has been introduced in the Legislature. The bill would help alleviate disparities between online retailers, who are not required to collect New Jersey's 7 percent sales tax unless they have a physical presence in the state, and bricks-and-mortar stores, according to Democrats. "My goal and the goal of legislative leadership has always been to find a way to balance the interests of the retail merchants and the Internet merchants in a way that will ensure equity and a level playing field going forward," said Assembly Majority Leader Louis D. Greenwald (D., Camden)

Gov. Casey declared his adamant opposition yesterday to a Republican proposal that would raise the state sales tax to achieve local tax revision - even though the plan has yet to be completed or formally unveiled. Casey, at a hastily called news conference, also pledged to veto a second plan by Senate Republicans to make tax cuts of $98 million, mostly in business taxes. "This year I do not think it's appropriate for Pennsylvania to be reducing taxes or to be increasing taxes because of the fiscal situation we find ourselves in," Casey said.

Officials from Pennsylvania and New York signed a cooperative agreement yesterday to combat sales-tax evasion. Under the agreement, the two states will share merchants' sales-tax information as well as lists of customers who have purchased items in either state but have not paid sales tax. Pennsylvania charges a 6 percent sales tax while New York charges a 4 percent sales tax with a local option of up to 4.25 percent. Pennsylvania law requires state residents who buy merchandise out of state to pay a 6 percent use tax, applicable in mail and telephone orders and in cases when items bought in person are shipped to the buyer's home state.

Assembly Democrats who have balked at Gov. Corzine's budget proposals will hold a hearing today on a spending plan of their own that avoids a one-point increase in the state's 6 percent sales tax. The $30.4 billion alternative budget has no across-the-board tax increase but institutes a new fee on New Jersey wage-earners, adds taxes on fur coats and car rentals, and makes deeper cuts to child welfare, parks and property-tax programs than the...

Put a little extra Gleem on the old toothbrush this morning. Heck, floss if you've got the urge. Go out to the bagel shop and buy a dozen. Buy two dozen. Starting immediately, those and other items will be free from the state sales tax after coming under the 6 percent levy - by mistake - for the last 2 1/2 months. Gov. Casey yesterday signed legislation that cleaned up errors in the $3 billion-plus tax-increase package passed in August. The changes, unanimously approved this week by the House and Senate, will cost an estimated $30 million in revenue.

You drive across the border into Delaware daily, in sport-utility vehicles, minivans, or at least cars with roomy trunks. All you Pennsylvanians and New Jerseyans are on a mission to buy on the cheap, bypassing malls, big-box retailers and mom-and-pop stores at home to pocket savings. Computers, refrigerators, furniture and stereo systems. All of it is available in Delaware without sales tax. It's one of five states with that shopper-heaven distinction. Alaska, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon are the others.

State and township officials are pushing to lower the 6 percent state sales tax to 3 percent in a section of the township, saying business owners cannot compete with adjacent communities that already have a reduced sales tax. "If people come here, they have to pay 6 percent," said Township Administrator Ed Sasdelli. "Why would they come here if it is cheaper to go there?" Earlier this year, township officials formed a task force to find ways to level the economic playing field in Franklin, a 55-square-mile municipality that bellies up to Salem County and Vineland, which boast a 3 percent sales tax. The task force caught the attention of Sen. John J. Matheussen (R., Gloucester)

With less than a week before the state's budget deadline, Gov. Corzine and his fellow Democrats are locked in a sales-tax showdown. The former Wall Street executive has tied the future of his first budget to a one-penny increase in the state's 6 percent sales tax, arguing that it would solve a years-long fiscal crisis. But majority-party lawmakers - and South Jersey Democrats in particular - are standing squarely in his way. Negotiations on the freshman governor's proposed $30.9 billion spending plan have gone so poorly that Corzine has told his staff to prepare for a government shutdown if he rejects the budget the Legislature is required to send him before July 1. Faced with that kind of deadline pressure, some North and Central Jersey lawmakers are willing to discuss a last-minute change of heart on the sales tax. Sen. Paul Sarlo (D., Bergen)

The state Division of Taxation has performed periodic spot checks for sales-tax certificates at the Columbus Farmer's Market flea market since New Jersey instituted a sales tax in 1966. But on Aug. 20, about 60 investigators from the office descended on the Thursday-morning outdoor flea market off Route 206 in Springfield and checked about 900 merchants, in what state officials describe as the first major sweep of the market. "No, it wasn't really a raid," Kenneth Munn, assistant to the state taxation director, said last week.

Defiant Assembly Democrats still say New Jersey didn't need a sales-tax increase. But what the state did need six days into an increasingly embarrassing government shutdown, they said, was a deal. Democrats arrived at the Statehouse yesterday morning resigned to putting an end to their weeks-long showdown with Gov. Corzine over his proposed one-point increase in the state's 6 percent sales tax. And so when he offered a compromise - albeit one a shade different than a plan he had embraced 10 days ago - they jumped at it. Like the 10-day-old compromise brokered by Senate President Richard J. Codey (D., Essex)

DAN ROITMAN, chief executive of the Center City -based Stroll, is no fan of the Marketplace Fairness Act, the so-called Internet sales-tax bill expected to be voted on in the U.S. Senate on Monday. The legislation would empower states to reach beyond their borders and compel online marketers - like Stroll - to collect state and local sales taxes for online purchases. The sales taxes then would be sent to the state where a shopper lives. Stroll is an Internet-based marketing platform that sells audio language-learning products and had more than $80 million in revenues last year.

WASHINGTON - The Senate moved closer Thursday to passing a bill to tax purchases made over the Internet, but a final vote was delayed until members return from a weeklong vacation. Although opponents hope senators will hear from angry constituents over the next week, they have a steep hill to climb to defeat the bill. The Senate voted, 63-30, to end debate, setting up the final vote May 6. That vote will require only a majority, so 14 supporters would have to flip to stop it. President Obama supports the bill, but it faces an uncertain fate in the House, where some Republicans consider it a tax increase.

Need a reason to drink? How about improving the futures of Philadelphia's school kids? Mayor Nutter and City Council are rarely on the same page these days, but the possibility of increasing the "liquor by the drink" tax to help pay for the School Reform Commission request last week for $60 million seems to be gaining traction on both sides. City Council President Darrell Clarke has pledged support for increasing the tax, which now adds 10 percent to your bar tab (on top of the sales tax)

The Pennsylvania House and Senate Appropriations Committees met this week to address modernizing everyone's favorite monopoly, the state Liquor Control Board. Right there, you've got your first problem. Pennsylvania, the land time forgot, doesn't do change. The board was founded at the end of Prohibition to, as Gov. Gifford Pinchot declared, "discourage the purchase of alcoholic beverages by making it as inconvenient and expensive as possible," a promise we can agree it has made good on to this day. We have the "temporary" 18 percent Johnstown Flood Tax that dates to 1936.

D EAR HARRY: I've had a series of unfortunate events too complicated to include in a letter. I am very slowly working my way out. I operate a retail store in Philly, and I fell behind in my sales-tax payments a few years ago. I am trying to get the state to arrange for a regular payment plan. However, it refused to do so, because it says I have not filed my Pennsylvania income-tax forms for 1996, 1999 and 2000. Unfortunately, I do not have these forms. The accountant who prepared them is deceased, and his records were shredded years ago. I was not notified about these missing returns until I got the letter last week.

No sale on school funding plan Pennsylvania students shouldn't have to wait in line behind corporations for a cut of $250,000 in additional yearly school funds. But that's Gov. Corbett's plan for public education. He wants Pennsylvania to swap 5,000 State Store jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars in regular-as-clockwork revenue for a paltry education block grant divided among 500 districts. Corbett prefers to plunder public resources instead of finding permanent ways to fund vital services.

TRENTON - A powerful Democrat is moving ahead with a plan to ask New Jersey voters in November to approve long-term funding for open space preservation, but there's no consensus on how to pay for it. The Senate Environmental Committee on Monday discussed three funding options now that $400 million in land-preservation bonds that voters approved in 2009 have been spent. Funding sources being considered are a water-user fee that would cost residential customers about $36 a year, setting aside $200 million a year from sales tax revenue, or replenishing the fund again through borrowing.

Small-business owners may be closer to losing an advantage they've enjoyed during the e-commerce boom: being exempt from collecting sales tax in states where they're not located. And they worry they'll have to spend more money in the process. Under federal law, a state or local government cannot force a company to collect sales tax on a purchase - whether that purchase was made online, by phone, or through mail order - unless the business has a physical presence in the state or locality.

Gov. Corbett is about to roll out a long-awaited plan for solving Pennsylvania's transportation-funding crisis - by raising more revenue from a tax on wholesale gasoline. The governor is scheduled to announce next week that he intends to uncap the so-called oil company franchise tax, according to two senior legislative staffers who are familiar with the proposal and spoke on condition of anonymity. That tax is levied on the wholesale price of gas and is now capped at $1.25 per gallon.

Freeze appears to ease in West FRESNO, Calif. - The freeze gripping the West appeared on the verge of easing Tuesday, but farmers who spent millions to protect crops were still assessing damage, some produce prices climbed, and businesses and residents dealt with burst pipes. The National Weather Service predicted another frosty night but said temperatures would begin to warm as high pressure moved east. For a fifth night, temperatures in the San Joaquin Valley, California's agricultural heart, dipped below freezing, though they were a few degrees warmer than previous nights.