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“Any Imposts or Duties”
Mar. 19th, 2019 08:42 pmReason has an article about merchants struggling to deal with the consequences of the Supreme Court’s ruling, overturning a precedent from the early 1990s, that states could impose sales taxes on sales by businesses without a physical presence in their states. I don’t like that ruling, for several reasons.
It overturned, or at least weaseled around, an earlier precedent, and while I do not believe that no bad decision should ever be undone, I do not think that precedents should be overturned or ignored frivolously. This decision, as I understand it, was based on reinterpreting what is called the Dormant Commerce Clause, but what about the explicit language of the Constitution, Article I, Section 10: “No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection Laws.”
Does this apply only to imports from or exports to foreign countries? I thought that one great benefit of the Constitution was that it established internal free trade, and prevented the several states from levying taxes on imports from other states in the U.S.
I also have a Georgist reason for opposing the ruling. If businesses within a state were given good reason to complain that they were taxed unfairly by comparison with online vendors elsewhere, the result might be for states to reduce or abolish their sales taxes, and, one might hope, rely more on property taxes.
It overturned, or at least weaseled around, an earlier precedent, and while I do not believe that no bad decision should ever be undone, I do not think that precedents should be overturned or ignored frivolously. This decision, as I understand it, was based on reinterpreting what is called the Dormant Commerce Clause, but what about the explicit language of the Constitution, Article I, Section 10: “No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection Laws.”
Does this apply only to imports from or exports to foreign countries? I thought that one great benefit of the Constitution was that it established internal free trade, and prevented the several states from levying taxes on imports from other states in the U.S.
I also have a Georgist reason for opposing the ruling. If businesses within a state were given good reason to complain that they were taxed unfairly by comparison with online vendors elsewhere, the result might be for states to reduce or abolish their sales taxes, and, one might hope, rely more on property taxes.
