In a 5-4 decision that broke across the court’s usual ideological lines (Kennedy, Thomas, Alito, Ginsburg, and Gorsuch in favor, Roberts, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan dissenting), the Supreme Court has ruled in South Dakota v. Wayfair that states can force online retailers to collect sales tax for them, rejecting previous Quill Corp. v. North Dakota precedent from 1992 that required a physical presence in the state. “Rejecting the physical presence rule is necessary to ensure that artificial competitive advantages are not created by this Court’s precedents.”
As someone who both buys and sells books online, this is not an outcome I would have wished, but having Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch on the affirmative side of the opinion does give me pause. But the golden age of the wide-open online commerce Internet appear to be drawing to a close.
Here’s the text of the decision itself (Legal Insurruection initially had a link to the wrong decision).
Tags: Internet, interstate commerce, Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, South Dakota v. Wayfair, Supreme Court, Taxes