eBay on the Marketplace Fairness Act: To believe or not to believe?

WASHINGTON, May 2, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- The Alliance for Main Street Fairness (AMSF) issued the following statement to highlight eBay's hypocrisy regarding the Marketplace Fairness Act, which is scheduled for a final vote in the U.S. Senate on Monday, May 6.

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First, eBay calls on Congress to reject ANY e-fairness legislation.

Tod Cohen, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel of Global Government Relations at eBay Inc, says: "Congress should reject any Internet sales tax legislation that throws a new tax barrier in front of small businesses." (Brendan Sasso, "Lawmakers Claim Momentum In Push For Internet Sales Tax," The Hill, 2/14/2013)

Then, eBay's senior director of public policy, Brian Bieron, says the company could put up with a $30 Million "Small Seller" exemption.

eBay's senior director of global public policy, Brian Bieron, says the Marketplace Fairness Act's exemption for retailers with less than $1 million in out-of-state sales "is not nearly high enough and is completely arbitrary. He says that the U.S. Small Business Administration has definitions for what constitutes a small business, and that it has determined that a company that deals in "electronic shopping" is small until it reaches $30 million in revenue — or 30 times the exemption level." (Tricia Duryee, "eBay Contends That Sales Tax Proposal Will Hurt Small Businesses," All Things D, 2/16/2013)

In fact, Bieron tells the press that eBay supported a previous version of the bill with a higher exemption.

"The latest version of the Marketplace Fairness Act includes an exemption for online sellers who made less than $1 million in the previous calendar year, but eBay thinks that's still too low. "That's not close to anybody's definition of a small business," said Brian Bieron, eBay's senior director of public policy. He said eBay fully supported a previous version of the Marketplace Fairness Act that exempted small businesses according to higher Small Business Administration thresholds." (Janet Cho, "E-fairness proponents hope 2013 Marketplace Fairness Act will collect billions in unpaid online taxes," The Plain Dealer, 3/2/2013)

Meanwhile, eBay's Government Relations team says the Marketplace Fairness Act is unconstitutional.

From the Twitter page for ebay Inc. Government Relations ‏@ebaygr: "@StandWithMainSt Constitution = remit tax where you have a presence and don't tax small [businesses] where they don't have presence."

And finally, eBay CEO John Donahue says they've always supported the concept, and decides a $10 Million exemption would be enough "to protect small online businesses."

"The solution is simple: if Congress passes online sales tax legislation, we believe small businesses with less than 50 employees or less than $10 million in annual out-of-state sales should be exempt from the burden of collecting sales taxes nationwide." (John Donahue, Internet Sales Tax Campaign Email to U.S. eBay B2C Sellers, April 21, 2013)

So, which eBay should we believe? What will they tell Congress next?

For more information, visit our website: www.standwithmainstreet.com.

SOURCE Alliance for Main Street Fairness