Cruz Warns Again of Marketplace Fairness Act's Lame Duck Passage

"If the Internet sales tax becomes law, small online retailers would have to comply with over 9,600 tax jurisdictions," said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in a video Friday. Cruz was referring to the Marketplace Fairness Act (HR-684), which would let states tax remote sellers with annual revenue exceeding $1 million. “The corporate lobbyists who want Internet taxes to crush their competition see a chance to make it law during the lame duck session of Congress,” Cruz said. Ten senators who helped pass the MFA in the Senate last year are leaving office at the end of this congressional term, he said. “This may be their last, best chance to pass it,” said Cruz. “We must say 'no.'” Congress shouldn’t try to combine the MFA with the Internet Tax Fairness Act, which would ban Internet access taxes, said Bartlett Cleland, Institute for Policy Innovation resident scholar-tax and innovation policy, in a news release Friday. If that happens, the “recent protests in Hungary opposing similar attempts will look mild compared to the anger of an electorate full of online consumers that deserves much better,” he said. A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has reportedly said that Boehner will block the MFA in the lame duck (see 1411120016).