ABA Urges Members to Reach Out to Federal Legislators

This week in an e-mail to members, ABA CEO Oren Teicher  encouraged booksellers to reach out to their federal lawmakers in support of the Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013 (H.R. 684 in the U.S. House of Representatives and S. 336 in the U.S. Senate).

The federal sales tax fairness bill, which was reintroduced by a bipartisan group of U.S. senators and representatives [1] in early February, would give states the authority to require remote retailers to collect and remit sales tax on purchases made by customers in their state.

In the e-mail, Teicher wrote: “For the successful passage of this legislation, it is critical for you to contact your U.S. senators and representatives to urge them to co-sponsor the bill. With the help of many of you, we’ve made enormous progress on sales tax fairness in states all across the country. Sixteen states are now, or will soon be, collecting sales tax on remote sales. But we have always believed that the most comprehensive and effective way to achieve sales tax fairness has been to enact a federal solution.”

To make the outreach easier for booksellers, ABA has created a template letter [2] that they can adapt to e-mail to their federal legislators or use as a resource for talking points. When adapting the template letter, ABA recommends that booksellers include a personal anecdote about how the current sales tax inequity has negatively impacted their business.

Booksellers with questions should contact David Grogan, ABA senior public policy analyst, at dave@bookweb.org [3] or at (800) 637-0037, ext. 7562.