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EBAY SEEKS TO CHANGE ON-LINE SALES TAX BILL
EBay CEO John Donahoe is emailing 40 million eBay users about pending federal Internet sales tax legislation, Alistair Barr writes in an article for Reuters. Donahoe said the Marketplace Fairness Act (S. 743) unfairly burdens small online merchants and asked eBay users to tell their federal legislators to change the bill. The legislation would grant states the authority to pass Internet sales tax laws and collect the taxes due from retailers outside their borders. Alabama has such legislation, but its implementation requires federal approval.
The federal legislation would exempt merchants with less than $1 million in annual out-of-state sales. Donahoe said merchants with less than $10 million in annual out-of-state sales, or fewer than 50 employees, ought to be exempt, Reuters reported. Big box retailers said the legislation would level the playing field. The Senate bill advanced Monday on a 74-20 procedural vote after President Obama endorsed it.
The Business Council of Alabama supports efforts to level the tax playing field for in-state and out-of-state retailers.
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REP. ROBY'S WORKING FAMILIES FLEXIBILITY ACT IS REPORTED OUT OF HOUSE COMMITTEE
U.S. Rep. Martha Roby's Working Families Flexibility Act (H.R. 1406) that proposes private-sector workers should get the same "comp time" options as public sector workers get was reported from the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on April 17. Roby said the legislation has 141 co-sponsors. The bill would allow paid time off or comp time in lieu of overtime pay. Roby, R-Montgomery, said public sector employees have those choices. The 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act dictated that all overtime be paid wages. Congress revised the law in 1985 to give public sector employers the options of paid time off, or comp time, for accrued overtime. The option would be voluntary for employees, and no business would be forced to offer it. |
BUSINESS GROUPS BACK PUSH FOR FAST-TRACK LEGISLATION BY JUNE
According to The Hill's Vicki Needham, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce expressed support this week for bipartisan fast-track legislation early this summer. The U.S. Chamber and other business groups are backing efforts of U.S. Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., to give President Obama the authority to negotiate trade agreements amid an expanding global agenda.
"I would like to see a bipartisan TPA [trade promotion authority] bill introduced by June,'' Baucus said at a Wednesday hearing. Christopher Wenk, head of international policy at the U.S. Chamber, said the group is "very pleased" and that it is "extremely encouraging" that Baucus set a timetable, according to The Hill.
Obama announced plans two months ago to try a trade deal with the European Union. Fast-track trade legislation would send trade agreements to Congress for no-amendment, up-or-down votes.
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House honors girls killed in Birmingham church bombing with Congressional Gold Medal
The Washington Post (O'Keefe, 4/24) reports, "Almost 50 years after their deaths, the House voted Wednesday to award the Congressional Gold Medal to four young girls killed in the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., a seminal moment in the civil rights movement....The Congressional Gold Medal is one of the nation's highest civilian honors and is awarded annually by Congress....The measure is cosponsored by Reps. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.) and Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.), who began pushing for the honor earlier this year with other members of the Alabama congressional delegation....If all goes as planned, the girls could receive the Gold Medal posthumously by Sept. 15 of this year."
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House Ways and Means chair to brief on tax reform
Politico (Sherman, Sloan 4/23) reports: "House Republican leaders will launch an aggressive behind-the-scenes push this week to set up the first rewrite of the Tax Code in more than 25 years. Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp - staring down the last year and a half of holding the powerful gavel - is planning to step up briefings with small groups of rank-and-file lawmakers beginning Thursday to explain the discussion draft bills his staff has produced to rewrite tax laws for small businesses, Wall Street and international corporations. In these sessions, the Michigan Republican will also present new polling he commissioned that shows a healthy public appetite for the kind of overhaul of the Tax Code Republicans are working toward. Today's system is derided by Republicans - and quite a few Democrats - as anti-competitive. Companies are supposed to pay taxes on profits they post anywhere in the world, but don't have to actually pay those levies until the cash is brought back to the U.S. That's encouraged global companies to park more than $1 trillion in profits offshore."
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Sessions, Shelby sign anti-dumping trade letter
Sessions' office 4/24: U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), a senior member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, joined Senate colleagues in writing U.S. International Trade Commission Chairman Irving A. Williamson regarding a review of antidumping duties on rebar steel imports. "Dear Chairman Williamson, We are writing to urge you to maintain the existing antidumping ("AD") orders against unfairly-traded imports of steel concrete reinforcing bar ("rebar") from Belarus, China, Indonesia, Latvia, Moldova, Poland, and Ukraine. The continuation of these trade orders is necessary to prevent further injury to an already vulnerable domestic rebar industry and its workers. As Senators from steel producing states, we are concerned about the impact of unfairly-traded imports on American jobs. On November 23, 2012, a review by the U.S. Department of Commerce found that if the orders were not maintained, producers in these seven countries would resume dumping rebar into the United States at margins ranging from 16.99 percent to 232.86 percent. It is essential that we do all we can to prevent unfairly priced imports from destroying good-paying American jobs." Signed by U.S. Sens. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and Richard Shelby, R-Ala.
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