The Alabama Big 10 Mayors released a statement Monday on the need to fix the state of Alabama’s “flawed internet sales tax system,” following a meeting in Tuscaloosa that hosted mayors and city officials from dozens of municipalities across the state.
At the meeting, Simplified Sellers Use Tax, SSUT, was a primary topic of conversation, and municipal leaders and educators discussed how the state’s current system of collecting taxes from internet sales is putting tremendous strain on city budgets, cutting into resources for schools, first responders, infrastructure, and putting local “mom and pop” businesses at a competitive disadvantage against large, out-of-state corporation selling products online.
“Today’s meetings with municipalities across the state further reinforced the fact that there is a growing consensus to address our state’s unfair online sales tax structure,” said the Alabama Big 10 Mayors. “Its current structure is a problem for Alabama – it’s bad for municipalities, bad for schools, and bad for small businesses. This issue must be addressed, whether through the courts or through the legislature. Every day the system continues to exist in its current form is another day where our schools, first responders and communities are losing the resources that they depend on and are rightly theirs.”…