NASHVILLE – Gov. Bill Haslam is applauding the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to take up a South Dakota case expected to determine whether Tennessee and other states can begin compelling out-of-state internet vendors to start collecting billions of dollars in sales taxes owed to them.
The Republican governor “is encouraged that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear this case and looks forward to the court’s decision,” said Haslam press secretary Jennifer Donnals.
“He believes it is unfair to disadvantage brick and mortar retailers in Tennessee against out-of-state, online retailers,” Donnals added in the statement to the Times Free Press.
Last week, the nation’s highest court agreed to revisit its 26-year-old ruling in a South Dakota case that eventually helped turn most internet commerce into a tax-free zone.
Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery joined with Republican and Democratic colleagues from 33 states, including Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, in filing a friend-of-the-court brief in support of getting the Supreme Court to revisit the 1992 ruling known as Quill.