NASHVILLE-During a state legislative debate this spring over requiring online retailer Amazon.com to collect sales taxes, Senate Finance Committee Vice Chairman Douglas Henry felt the need to ‘fess up.
The Nashville Democrat, first elected to the General Assembly in the 1950s, acknowledged he hadn’t paid sales taxes on books he bought from out-of-state online retailers.
“I need to write you a check for $100,” Henry told Revenue Commissioner Richard Roberts. He said later he actually paid about $97.
But Henry’s decision is pretty rare, state Revenue Department figures show.
Despite billions of dollars of online purchases, virtually no Tennessee consumers pay the “use tax” owed on items purchased from retailers that don’t collect sales tax.