Many readers may remember an e-mail floating around the web several years ago about a bill, called 602P, which would allow the Federal Government to collect a five cent surcharge on every e-mail received. According to the information contained in the e-mail, the Feds would charge your internet service provider who in turn would charge your account five cents for the e-mail. The money would be used to help the Postal Service. That e-mail was false and there was no bill called 602P, but it did generate a lot of anger from the wild and untamed World Wide Web users.
Fast forward to 2013 and there’s a bill in the United States Senate called the “Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013” (S. 743) which, according to a website supporting it, “grants states the authority to compel online and catalog retailers (“remote sellers”), no matter where they are located, to collect sales tax at the time of a transaction.”
Unlike 602P, S. 743 is an actual bill. Maybe they should call it the “Tax Increase and Burden on Small Business Act?”
The Western Word 