(CA) Sen. Loni Hancock acts to thwart Amazon referendum (online sales tax)

[alp227]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

Sacramento --

Lawmakers are aiming to torpedo a well-funded referendum that would undo a piece of the budget package requiring major online retailers to collect sales tax.

On Thursday, Sen. Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, amended a bill that would make the sales tax requirement untouchable by a referendum and would blow up the effort funded by online giant Amazon to allow voters to decide whether to keep the tax in place.

Amazon has already pumped $5.2 million into the effort, according to filings with the secretary of state, and paid signature gatherers across the state have been collecting names to put the referendum on the ballot.

Hancock said the estimated $200 million that would come into state coffers from collecting the tax would help fund services like education and environmental protection as well as "restore a level playing field for California's brick-and-mortar businesses" that are at a disadvantage because they have to collect the tax.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/08/26/MN4F1KS09L.DTL

[xchrom]

1. The argument is over WHO collects the taxes - there is already a

Cali Internet sales tax.

It's whether small bricks & mortar operations collect or amazon collects.

Amazon sales from inside Cali don't generate sales taxes even though they have major office representation there.

Amazon would collect & pay all sales taxes.

A win for Cali.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

2. Be interesting if the the legislature can really exempt something from an initiative in CA

Not sure they can. If so they would have done it multiple time in the past. Be interesting to see what happens.

[SoapBox]

3. LA TIMES: "Democrats propose measures to rein in California initiative process"

...speaking of!

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ballot-initiatives-20110827,0,2736561.story