Millburn Chamber Seeks "E-Fairness"

The Millburn-Short Hills Chamber of Commerce presented the Millburn Township Committee Tuesday night with a resolution seeking fair tax laws for online commerce that will make it easier for local shops to compete with the Internet.

Hoping to garner support from the Township Committee, Shayne Austin Miller, president of the Chamber, read a lengthy resolution, and said local businesses have a hard enough time competing with online companies such as Amazon. Add in the fact that those customers don’t have to pay sales tax, it’s almost impossible, he said.

“We want the big Internet giants to [charge] tax,” Miller said. “They should charge the New Jersey sales tax and send it to New Jersey.”

The resolution aims to promote was has been termed as “e-fairness.”

Chamber members and merchants throughout the state have formed a grassroots coalition called the Alliance for Main Street Fairness, to "level the playing field against Internet retailers," he said.

“This coalition works to raise awareness of this unfair tax loophole through various means: Participating in press opportunities, writing letters to the editor, engaging in grassroots activities like contacting elected officials and educating the public and consumers about the loophole’s negative impact on our businesses,” Miller said.

The resolution states that the State of New Jersey, whose tax laws were written at a time before the Internet made online shopping possible, requires brick-ad-mortar shops in New Jersey to collect and remit 7 percent sales tax, but does not require the same for online-only stores.

In addition, the resolution states that because New Jersey has one of the highest rates of Internets users in the country with Internet retail growing by 367 percent in New Jersey since 2002, compared to 267 percent nationally, local retailers are struggling.

Since Internet-only, out-of-state retailers aren’t required to collect 7 percent sales tax when selling to consumers in New Jersey even though the tax is still owed, the burden of paying the tax falls unknowingly to consumers and therefore leaves millions of dollars not going to the state.

Miller said the Chamber supports the idea that Internet-only, out-of-state retailers have an unfair 7 percent price advantage loophole over brick-and-mortar New Jersey retailers both large and small “even though our in-state retailers employ New Jersey families, sustain New Jersey downtowns and improve property values for New Jersey communities,” the resolutions states.

The chamber and the coalition resolution for "e-fairness," seeks to make Internet retailers collect the sales tax just like the businesses on Main Street.