Online tax: Marlon Nasser is a co-owner of Pacesetter Sports and has made his feelings known about taxing online sales.
TERRE HAUTE — Several Terre Haute businesses are part of a statewide grassroots movement to require online retailers to collect Indiana’s 7-percent sales tax and send that money to the state.
Indiana Merchants for Tax Fairness, a coalition of 250 members, hopes to push Indiana legislators in their 2012 session to change the law to require the tax collection.
Marlon Nasser, co-owner of PaceSetter Sports, 2831 S. Third St., said he is surprised online sales taxes have not been implemented. His business is among those who have joined the coalition.
“I am blown away that it has not already happened just because of the amount of money the states are losing out on,” Nasser said, “and the unfair competitive advantage that they have over local merchants. They are 7 percent less if we sell something at the same price.”
Long-term, Nasser said he thinks his business sales would increase 2 to 5 percent once online merchants were required to collect sales tax.
Indiana businesses, whether individual, partnership or corporation, must already pay a use tax on items purchased where a sales tax was not paid. It covers items brought into Indiana for use, storage or consumption.
“It doesn’t make any sense the way states are hurting. Why would they not want that?” Nasser asked. “Think what it does for the state,” Nasser said, adding more income from outside sales would take pressure off state legislators from having to raise the state sales tax to cover budget shortfalls.
“It is like finding money that they were not getting, and what I think they should be getting. What is fair for one should be fair for all,” Nasser said.
Paul Thiemann of Thiemann Office Products, 34 N. Sixth St., sees the matter similarly.
“As far as competition for us, it depends on who the suppler is. For folks like Amazon and others that do not have a location in the state of Indiana, we are at a sales tax disadvantage.”
Amazon has distributions centers in Indiana, but they are exempt from paying state sales tax under an agreement with the state.
“I think they should be made to collect sales tax,” said Thiemann, whose business also has joined Indiana Merchants for Tax Fairness
The coalition makes sense to Steve Ludwig, owner of Education World in Terre Haute. The company has been in business in Terre Haute for more than 30 years, with 13 years at its present location at 3177 S. Third Place. It also has joined the coalition.
“There is not much as a small business owner we can do, so we have to do it as a group, with a bigger voice. It really gives us a voice, otherwise we have no voice.
“As a businessman, I think it is an unfair playing field if they [online retailers] do not have to do something we have to do,” Ludwig said. “The sooner it is changed the better, as far as I am concerned.”
Ludwig said his business has noticed that online sales “are definitely hurting us,” especially in the past two or three years. That’s likely from the increased popularity of days such as Cyber Monday, where online discounts are heavily promoted, he said.
Ludwig said he thinks his business sales are hurt by at least 10 percent, “particularly during certain times of the year, it is 10 percent at least. During back-to-school sales it is definitely 10 percent, as that is our biggest time, along with now,” Ludwig said.
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