Section 6-2.5-9-11 - Findings of general assembly The general assembly finds the following:
(1) The inability to effectively collect the gross retail tax or use tax from remote sellers that deliver tangible personal property, products transferred electronically, or services directly into Indiana is seriously eroding the tax base of Indiana and causing revenue losses and imminent harm to Indiana through the loss of critical funding for state and local services.(2) Gross retail tax and use tax revenues are essential in funding state and local services.(3) Despite the fact that a use tax is imposed on the storage, use, or consumption of tangible personal property in Indiana if the property was acquired in a retail transaction, many remote sellers actively market sales as "tax free" or as "no sales tax" transactions.(4) The structural advantages of remote sellers, including the absence of point-of-sale tax collection, and the general growth of the online retail industry make clear that further erosion of Indiana's gross retail tax base is likely in the near future.(5) Remote sellers that make a substantial number of deliveries into Indiana or have large gross revenues from Indiana benefit extensively from Indiana's market (including the economy generally) and from the infrastructure in Indiana.(6) In contrast with the expanding harms caused to Indiana from this exemption of gross retail tax collection obligations for remote sellers, the costs of that collection have fallen. Given modern computing and software options, it is neither unusually difficult nor burdensome for remote sellers to collect and remit gross retail taxes associated with sales into Indiana.(7) The Supreme Court of the United States should reconsider its doctrine that prevents, under certain circumstances, states from requiring remote sellers to collect gross retail tax, and as the findings of this section make clear, this argument has grown stronger, and the cause more urgent, with time.(8) Given the urgent need for the Supreme Court of the United States to reconsider this doctrine, it is necessary for the general assembly to enact IC 6-2.5-2-1(d), clarifying the state's immediate intent to require collection of gross retail taxes by remote sellers.(9) Expeditious review is necessary and appropriate because, while it may be reasonable notwithstanding this law for remote sellers to continue to refuse to collect the gross retail tax in light of existing federal constitutional doctrine, such a refusal causes imminent harm to Indiana.(10) It is the intent of the general assembly to apply Indiana's gross retail tax and use tax obligations to the limit of federal and state constitutional doctrines and to specify that Indiana law permits the state to immediately argue in any litigation that such a constitutional doctrine should be changed to permit the obligation to collect state gross retail tax as provided in IC 6-2.5-2-1(d).Amended by P.L. 146-2020,SEC. 19, eff. 7/1/2020.Added by P.L. 247-2017,SEC. 5, eff. 7/1/2017.