South Dakota Wins Bigger Government, Bigger Sales Taxes in Wayfair, Can Now Afford Food Tax Relief
Marty Jackley lost the primary to the less-qualified Kristi Noem, but he can celebrate winning his big Supreme Court case. Despite Jackley’s shaky performance in April, the highest court in the land today decided in South Dakota v. Wayfair to accede to the wishes of the conservative Republican South Dakota Legislature and allow us to enforce our state laws beyond our state borders and collect more tax dollars from people who’ve never set foot in our state.
I’m not the only one who finds this ruling ideologically confusing. The 5–4 ruling found usually conservative but today judicial activist Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch joining centrist Kennedy and liberal Bader Ginsburg overturning the Quill 1992 decision and greenlighting extraterritorial government authority and higher taxes, while liberals Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan joined conservative Chief Justice Roberts in defending stare decisis, limited state government, and lower taxes.
Jackley cheers today’s decision as “a win for South Dakota and for Main Street businesses across America that will now have a level playing field and tax fairness.”
Bread for the World South Dakota celebrates, too, because this victory means that if all those out-of-staters we now get to draft as tax collectors do their jobs well, the extra revenue they collect for us may lead to a lower sales tax rate.
Background: A little-known section of a 2016 law says that if the Supreme Court approves, as just happened, the collection of tax on online sales, and then if that tax revenue goes up at least $20 million, then one-tenth of a percent must come off the state’s general sales tax rate. It’s the law [Bread for the World SD, press release, 2018.06.21].
Read more: http://dakotafreepress.com/2018/06/21/sd-wins-bigger-government-bigger-sales-taxes-in-wayfair-can-now-afford-food-tax-relief/
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