egular transactions. They also say that sales-tax exemption for e-commerce is likely to speed up a growing gap between those who have Internet access and those without Internet access (Price). The supporters, despite challenges in taxing jurisdictions, have found that software companies have developed programs for e-commerce that figures the sales tax of an Internet purchase based on destination of the goods purchased and applies the appropriate taxes to the buyer’s credit card (Chi). In essence they believe that the imposition of sales taxes is necessary in e-commerce to establish a level playing field for all consumers. In opposition to supporters, the opponents of taxing e-commerce say that the playing field is even. They say in most cases, the shipping and handling charges imposed by Internet retailers exceeds the amount of sales tax charged by local retailers (Chi). The opponents believe that e-commerce is not a threat to local businesses, because they can reach national and international markets through the Internet (Chi). They said by applying existing sales taxes to e-commerce would reduce the number of online buyers by twenty-five percent and spending by more than thirty percent. Opponents also say collection of local and state sales taxes would be simply too difficult a task to apply to Internet goods and services. As a result, opponents clearly feel that adding a tax to e-commerce would greatly deter the number of people who do business over the Internet.AnalysisOver the past ten years e-commerce transactions have increased dramatically. In the following line graph entitled “Internet Generated Revenue 1996-2002,” the amount of United States dollars generated through Internet transactions in billions is shown over a period of time from the early 1990’s through what is predicted for the year 2002. In 1994, it is shown that only eight million dollars of revenue was generated over the Internet. F...
