U.S. Commission Dragging On E-Commerce Taxation

Don't expect the U.S. Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce to neatly untangle the knotty issue of state and local taxation of business-to-consumer and business-to-business transactions. Created a year ago to make recommendations to Congress on a variety of international, federal, and state and local e-commerce matters, the panel will be holding hearings well into the year 2000. It's becoming clear that the commission only will be able to put together the required two-thirds majority for such generalizations as, "In taxation, e-commerce and non-electronic commerce should be treated similarly."