Update: House Judiciary Committee Re-schedules Marketplace Fairness Act Discussion

UPDATE:  The House Judiciary Committee has re-scheduled the hearing on the Marketplace Fairness Act for March 12 at 10am.

Previous story:

tED magazine and tedmag.com is following the developments in the House Judiciary meeting held on March 4, 2014 relating to the Marketplace Fairness Act. 

The Committee had agreed to hear testimony in a session called “Exploring Alternative Solutions on the Internet Sales Tax Issue”.  While no new legislation was being proposed, this was going to be a step that would hopefully lead to a new bill presented to Congress in 2014.

Unfortunately, the hearing was postponed yesterday, with no new date scheduled to talk about the topic.

Here is our previous story, posted at www.tedmag.com on February 13, 2014.

Just when we thought the Marketplace Fairness Act would not be heard in 2014, along comes news that the House Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing to discuss the act one more time.

The International Council of Shopping Centers has released a statement that the Judiciary Committee has scheduled the hearing for March 4.  The time has not been announced.  The Council does not expect any new legislation related to the Act to be introduced before the hearing.

NAED is a huge supporter of the Marketplace Fairness Act, which will allow states to collect sales tax on items sold online.  Many NAED members have told tED magazine that they have watched customers come into their distributorship, ask about products, get the information they need, and then buy the products somewhere else online to avoid paying the sales tax. The Marketplace Fairness Act will level that playing field.

The Marketplace Fairness Act bill was introduced in February 2013 and passed the Senate.  Due to political issues involving the government shut down, Affordable Care Act and debt ceiling, the bill expired before the House took a vote on it. 

NAED Vice President of Government Affairs Ed Orlet announced that he will be looking for testimonials from NAED members to submit to the Judiciary Committee at the March 4 meeting.