The Senate this week will take up a U.S. customs and trade enforcement bill that includes a permanent ban on taxing access to the Internet.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said that he’ll also move to the floor sometime this year a separate measure that would allow state governments to collect online sales taxes from out-of-state retailers.
McConnell wouldn’t identify a specific date for the online sales tax measure, known as the Marketplace Fairness Act, but his pledge to bring it to the floor in 2016 appears to be be part of a deal that will help move the customs bill by the end of the week and clear it for the president’s signature.
The vote on the customs bill will happen after the Senate’s Wednesday vote on a legislation sanctioning North Korea for its recent testing of a nuclear weapon and missile launch.
The long-awaited customs bill passed the House last year after a conference meeting with the Senate to iron out differences.
Some Democrats, however, do not support the inclusion of the Internet tax freedom provision in the bill, and in the past they have threatened to strip it out of the underlying legislation, arguing it is unrelated.
Local government officials have lobbied against the Internet tax provision because, they say, it would cost them hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue and take away their taxing authority.
McConnell on Tuesday pointed out that Congress has extended a temporary Internet tax freedom bill eight times. “This is another tax relief measure we have done in drib and drabs,” McConnell said. “This would make it permanent. It’s another important accomplishment of this majority.”
The underlying bill would overhaul the nation’s trade and customs law by increasing enforcement of intellectual property rights and the ban on currency manipulation.
The bill lacks broad Democratic support. Only 24 Democrats backed it in the House. Party lawmakers say the bill does not go far enough to address currency manipulation by China and other countries, which they say hurts the U.S. economy and has killed jobs.
