http://www.dmregister.com/business/stories/c4789010/22630343.html Online sales rob state of taxes Iowa Values Fund success hinges on proposed legislation By DONNELLE ELLER Assistant Business Editor 10/30/2003 Rich Bartlett figures he's lost 5 percent of his tobacco sales to businesses that sell cigarettes online or through catalogs. "What it means in state tax dollars is probably millions," once all Iowa tobacco sales are figured in, said Bartlett, owner of South Side Tobacco at 2432 S.W. Ninth St. Iowans' online and mail-order purchases of everything from TVs to computers, books and clothing will cost the state about $180 million in lost sales taxes by 2007, state officials estimate. As state and local governments sink further into financial red ink, a lot is riding on an initiative to collect remote sales taxes, including the future of the Iowa Values Fund created this year to spur new high-wage jobs. The fund is expected to have $503 million to spend over the next seven years. The first $100 million will be federal money, but after that the fund will rely on sales-tax growth expected to come in part from taxes collected on Internet sales. [...] _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)
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