Subj: Level Playing Field: Perspectives of Americans For Tax Reform 
From: Grover Norquist Americans For Tax Reform (ATR) 
To: Internet Caucus Advisory Committee

Section: Level Playing Field/Fairness

The following is Commissioner Grover Norquist’s Personal Statement in the 
 Report of the Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce

The Internet is giving ordinary people access to extraordinary information 
and opportunities. Some people say it is changing everything. One thing it has 
not changed, however, is the irresistible urge by many in government to regulate 
and tax.

Throughout this Commission’s work, we have witnessed the extraordinary 
 lengths to which some in the political class will go to justify using the 
Internet as a  means to impose new tax burdens on the American people. While 
most Americans rightly  see the Internet as a fantastic new phenomenon that can 
improve the national  economy and a family’s economy at the same time, those who 
would tax it see it as a threat,  dangerously outside the control of government.

Ultimately, a majority of the Commission chose to reject the alarmist claims 
 and empty rhetoric of state and local politicians whose appetite for more taxes 
 surpasses even the record budget surpluses most governments enjoy today. This 
Commission  has embraced an approach that slashes taxes on consumers, encourages 
reform of  the incomprehensible myriad known as the sales and use tax system, 
and help  bridge the “digital divide.”

In addition, the Commission has directly and forcefully rejected attempts by 
 those who would tax the Internet to link simplification of sales and use taxes 
to  guaranteed new powers to impose tax burdens on individuals and businesses 
outside of a  government’s jurisdiction. The Commission wisely recognized that 
simplification is good for  its own sake, and need not be traded like some 
political football for a policy that would  increase the tax burden on American 
consumers.

FALSE CLAIMS OF “FAIRNESS” 

Politics makes for strange bedfellows, and this Commission proved to be 
no exception. In an attempt to divert attention from the their real goal of 
raising taxes, the politicians who support a risky new tax collection scheme for 
cyberspace enlisted the support of a handful of “traditional” retailers, playing 
on their fears that the cyber- economy will leave them behind.

While some of these groups speak of “fairness,” they advocate nothing of the 
 sort. A clothing store in Arlington, Virginia need collect and remit taxes for 
only a  single jurisdiction, and follow a single tax rate for a single table of 
taxable goods. Yet  the advocates of “fairness” believe a clothing store 
operating in cyberspace should  be responsible for collecting sales taxes for 
6,600 different jurisdictions, each with  their own tax rates, tables, audits, 
and reporting requirements.

The Commission ultimately recognized that these calls for “fairness” 
were actually an effort to squelch the online economy by forcing every e- vendor 
to become the tax collector for 6,600 different agencies. Rather than a 
 prescription for “fairness,” such a system would turn the Internet’s global 
nature into a liability  for anyone engaging in e-commerce. Rather than seize 
the opportunities presented  by the Internet, these groups would rather destroy 
their online competitors and go  back to business as usual. This option was 
rejected, and the Commission was correct  for doing so.