DMA Expresses Disappointment with the Introduction of 'Main Street Fairness Act'

August 1, 2011 — The Direct Marketing Association expressed disappointment with the introduction of the “Main Street Fairness Act” in the Senate, SB 1452, by Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and in the House, HB 2701, by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI). The bills do not provide the needed efficiencies across state taxing structures nor do they sufficiently reduce the “undesirable burdens” that led the Supreme Court in its Quill decision to restrict states from requiring remote sellers to collect sales tax in the first place.

While the states previously created the Streamline Sales and Use Tax Agreement in recognition of this burden on interstate commerce, it is streamlined in name only.

These bills, in the best of economic times, are bad policy, as they interfere with the free-flow of commerce among the states, a principal upon which the United States was founded. In these difficult economic circumstances, placing new, unfunded mandates on out-of-state companies to comply with complex and changing tax structures in many states around the country will hamper e-commerce a fast growing segment in our economy.

DMA believes that Congress should reject this effort and instead seek to find true efficiency and harmonization of state taxing regimes in order to achieve true streamlining of sales tax collection.

For more information on this issue, please contact Jerry Cerasale, DMA’s senior vice president of government affairs, at jcerasale@the-dma.org.

About Direct Marketing Association (DMA)

The Direct Marketing Association (www.the-dma.org) is the leading global trade association of businesses and nonprofit organizations using and supporting multichannel direct marketing tools and techniques. DMA advocates standards for responsible marketing, promotes relevance as the key to reaching consumers with desirable offers, and provides cutting-edge research, education, and networking opportunities to improve results throughout the end-to-end direct marketing process. Founded in 1917, DMA today represents companies from dozens of vertical industries in the US and 48 other nations, including nearly half of the Fortune 100 companies, as well as nonprofit organizations.

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