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Fairness and the Internet Sales Tax: A Contractarian Perspective
Abstract
One of the most noticeable features of online business transactions in the United States is the absence of a sales tax on interstate purchases. Consumers are not expected to pay taxes on Internet purchases across state lines, and businesses are not expected to collect taxes for such purchases. The absence of an interstate Internet sales tax (shortened hereafter to “Internet tax,” except where noted) has been both praised as an incentive to promote business, and condemned as the cause of serious revenue loss by municipalities throughout the nation. In this chapter, I shall present an analysis of current proposals about instituting a sales tax on Internet purchases. Both sides of the debate argue for their position on grounds of fairness to the businesses who, were an internet tax to be levied, would be expected to collect and remit it to the state and local governments. So, I will focus on the concept of fairness in this discussion. I will consider the claims about the fairness or unfairness of the Internet tax from the standpoint of contractarianism: a group of philosophical theories that focus on questions concerning the just distribution of social resources. I will make use specifically of the views of John Rawls and David Gauthier to analyze the positions on the Internet tax. I shall conclude by arguing in favor of the Internet tax on contractarian grounds.
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