County Board Tables “E-Fairness” Discussion

After discussions at the full county board and legislative committee level, the Door County Board of Supervisors made the decision to make no decision on the matter of online sales tax collection.

In 2012, the Wisconsin Counties Association (WCA) petitioned Door and the rest of Wisconsin’s counties to adopt a resolution supporting “e-fairness” legislation that would require online retailers to collect sales tax from their customers. The county was set to discuss the resolution at its Oct. 23 meeting, but after hearing concerns from members of the business community decided to take the matter back to legislative committee (see the Pulse article “E-Fairness Law Up for Discussion” from Nov. 21 for more information).

Board and legislative committee member Susan Kohout said the committee decided to table the matter on Jan. 9 because there were too many unknowns.

“We had a supervisor who had questions about it and felt Wisconsin law has provisions for it and what’s needed is more enforcement, not more laws,” said Kohout.

Kohout said the legislative committee also has to consider when and where to focus its attention when sending resolutions up to the state level, and it didn’t feel that online sales tax was important enough to take a stance on.

“There are a number of areas we want to take positions on from time to time,” said Kohout, “but we don’t want to be in the business of sending off resolutions unless it’s important.”

Door County Visitor Bureau President and CEO Jack Moneypenny was present at both the board’s initial discussion and the last legislative committee. He said he’s glad the county has decided to stay out of online sales tax law.

“I think it’s a good thing the county has tabled this until there’s a federal ruling on how they’re going to handle online interstate commerce,” said Moneypenny. “It really needs to be handled from a national standpoint.”