Andy Haile coauthors article on e-commerce taxation

A March 11 State Tax Notes article by Elon Law Professor Andy Haile, University of California-Berkeley School of Law Professor David Gamage and University of California Hastings College of the Law Professor Darien Shanske examines proposed federal legislation to address restrictions on states to collect sales or use taxes on electronic commerce.

Elon Law Professor Andy Haile

The abstract for the article, “A Potential Game Changer In E-Commerce Taxation,” is as follows:

“In this essay, we evaluate recent legislative proposals for Congress to authorize state taxation of e-commerce. We argue that these proposals contain a potential game-changing innovation—the requirement that states provide remote sellers with “adequate software” for calculating use tax due within the state. Properly implemented, we explain how this innovation could force states to internalize the compliance costs of levying tax collection obligations on remote sellers, thereby incentivizing the states to simplify their sales and use tax statutes and resolving concerns about states overburdening interstate commerce.”

State Tax Notes is a publication of Tax Analysts, a nonprofit provider of tax news and analysis, serving more than 150,000 tax professionals in law and accounting firms, corporations, and government agencies, including tax professionals at the top 25 international law firms, 96 of the top 100 U.S. law firms, and the majority of the Fortune 100. All Tax Analysts content is available through the LexisNexis® services.

Haile’s perspective on state taxation of e-commerce was featured in a July 3, 2012 State Tax Today report summarized here.

His article, coauthored with Elon Law Professor Scott Gaylord, titled, “Constitutional Threats in the E-Commerce Jungle: First Amendment and Dormant Commerce Clause Limits on Amazon Laws and Use Tax Reporting Statutes,” was published in the North Carolina Law Review.

Haile, Gamage and Shanske delivered presentations with other law scholars on the topic of state taxation of e-commerce at a 2011 Association of American Law Schools “Hot Topics Program” described here. 

More information about Elon Law Professor Andy Haile is available here.