An Internet Tax Save

[Commentary] The Internet is safe from new online sales-tax burdens, at least for the rest of 2014.

That’s the reassuring news from House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), who put a fork in a Senate plan to let America’s 9,600 state and local taxing authorities plunder the Internet. As the saying goes, no one is safe when the legislature is in session. And that goes double for a lame duck session in the twilight of Sen. Harry Reid ’s (D-NV) tenure as Majority Leader. The danger is heightened because the moratorium on Internet access taxes is due to expire Dec. 11. A bipartisan Senate tax cabal led by Sens Reid, Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Mike Enzi (R-WY) has been trying to meld the popular moratorium with a separate measure that would force online merchants to collect sales taxes for all of those 9,600 revenue departments, even in places where the merchants have no physical presence.

But a Boehner spokesperson said, “The Speaker has made clear in the past he has significant concerns about the bill, and it won’t move forward this year.” He added that “the House and Senate should work together to extend the moratorium on internet taxation without further delay.”