>As Christmas approaches, retailers take aim at online shops that don’t charge sales tax
The loss of revenue for the state and the loss of competition for retailers in New Jersey “compounds daily,” said New Jersey Retail Merchants Association president John Holub, because of online retailers that avoid the 7 percent sales tax.
“The lost revenue is important,” Holub said. “Bricks-and-mortar stores, before they even open their doors, are at a 7 percent disadvantage because of the lack of these online, Internet-only retailers’ failure to collect sales tax.”
The association commissioned a study, done by the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University earlier this year, which showed in 2009, the state lost an estimated $171 million in revenue from Internet-only retailers not collecting sales tax. That amount could increase to nearly $300 million by 2015. (Caliendo, NJBIZ)
