WE R HERE Encourages Consumers to Participate in Small Business Saturday

Critical need to bring fairness to the online marketplace

WASHINGTON, Nov. 23, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Tomorrow, more than 100 million people and thousands of small businesses will participate in the third annual Small Business Saturday, a day that encourages holiday shoppers to patronize businesses that are small and local.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120912/DC72675LOGO )

WE R HERE -- a coalition giving voice to more than 10,000 small businesses on important issues such as taxes, jobs and the economy -- urges shoppers to show their support to small businesses and shop locally with both brick and mortar and online companies.

"One of the great untold stories in American commerce is that thousands of small, web-enabled companies are in virtually every community across the country," said Phil Bond, Executive Director of WE R HERE and former Under Secretary for Technology at the U.S. Commerce Department.  "We hope Americans will support local companies with either in-person or online purchases this Saturday, and not overlook the small job creators in their communities that are using the Internet to grow their businesses. They are creating jobs, paying taxes and helping to grow their communities."

The call to not overlook web-enabled small companies comes just as Congress is considering new tax policies that would hurt the livelihoods of those small businesses. 

"Our nation's economy is struggling and small businesses are the backbone of our economy," said Bond. "And that certainly includes the thousands of innovative, small, web-enabled companies embedded in so many American communities."

Bond also called on Congress to recognize the thousands of web-enabled retailers that help to keep the marketplace competitive and prices low.

"Small web-enabled companies in thousands of communities are being targeted by large companies that are putting pressure on Congress to heap new tax burdens on the little guys," he noted. "We hope Congress doesn't forget about these small companies."

Two decades ago, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that forcing out-of-state sellers to collect sales tax in states where they do not have a physical presence would constitute an undue burden on retailers and commerce in general.  There is now a call to allow individual states to force online retailers to collect sales taxes for each customer's home state.

Small businesses already face proportionally higher operating costs compared to large national retailers, and current proposed legislation would further undermine their ability to compete and continue to drive online innovation.

"Small businesses today are overwhelmingly using the Internet and are critical to our economy," Bond added. "We should not be persecuting them with undue tax burdens and red tape." 

WE R HERE gives web-enabled retailers a unified voice, demonstrating to government policy makers and opinion leaders the positive role online small businesses play in today's economy.

For more information about the WE R HERE coalition and its members, visit www.werherecoalition.org.

WE R HERE is a coalition comprised of small business retailers around the country who are using the Internet and are coming together to ensure government policies are enacted that create a fair marketplace for all types of retail businesses to thrive and innovation to prosper. WE R HERE gives small business online retailers a unified voice, demonstrating to government policy makers and opinion leaders the positive role of online small business retail in the 21^st Century economy. The coalition effort mobilizes online retailers to work together to protect them from misguided and predatory laws and regulations that could kill jobs and undermine innovation.

SOURCE WE R HERE Coalition