Grover Norquist
The Senate voted 74 to 20 Monday evening to move forward with the Marketplace Fairness Act, which would
close the online sales tax loophole. It did so over the objections of an
interesting array of opponents including Grover Norquist, Max Baucus and eBay.
“This bill is bad for business and bad for jobs,” said Senator Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, who said the measure wasn’t ready to debate yet. “It is full of unintended consequences.” [...]
In a letter to lawmakers, Norquist described the bill as a “massive expansion of tax authority.”
Baucus's "bad for business" objections come over the chorus of other senators supporting the bill because it is
good for business; it all comes down to which businesses you're thinking about, I guess. And it's not like it only benefits small local businesses—Walmart will be happy about this bill, too, since it already collects sales tax everywhere.
Norquist's objection is especially cute, since the bill doesn't pass any new taxes. It just makes it more likely that taxes that are already supposed to be paid actually will be by making the retailers responsible for collecting them rather than telling consumers to, at the end of the year, add up all their untaxed online purchases and pay taxes on them. (Yeah, right.) But that's the kind of guy Grover Norquist is: He doesn't want to see existing taxes collected.
Since many Republicans in the House are right there on the same page with Norquist, the bill faces a tougher climb there. But enough major businesses support the bill that House Republicans are unlikely to completely disregard it.