The fastest, easiest way to collect sales and use tax from internet sales

Rather than having the vendors collect the tax, have the vendor send notification of shipping to a Connecticut address to the state Department of Revenue Services. As each purchase is sent to a Connecticut address a tally of the sale would be registered in to the tax payer's ledger at the DoRS. All tax payers residing at the same address, as declared on their last tax form, would be consolidated for the purpose of determining the tax owed.

We already have a Use tax for most goods and services. Honest tax payers already pay for all of the items they purchase from internet stores. Anything less is stealing. But in case there are some dishonest people the state could use some verification to ensure compliance with the law.

A problem with having the vendor collect the tax is national and international companies will have to incur the expense of maintaining multiple tax tables and the accounting of receiving funds and then dispersing them back to the State. If they only had to electronically tell the State that a purchase was made the state would then know to look for the tax from the consumer directly. At tax time, quarterly or yearly (as it is today) the tax payer would reconcile their purchases with any exemptions and credits in their ledger entry. There is no need to add a new internet sales type to the code.

All other tax law remains in place including failure to comply. Vendors have only to e-mail to a 'special' address which will direct the sales information to the correct account automatically. When the tax return is reconciled on April 15th the amount paid will equal the amount due. This system is inexpensive to set up and maintain. The burden for compliance is removed from the vendor, over which the state has no control, to the citizens who are using the services the taxes provide.