VENICE, Fla. — If you do a lot of online shopping – but you don’t send the sales tax to the Florida Department of Revenue – you might be breaking the law. And you’re not alone.
So many people are doing this, according to state Senator Joe Gruters of Sarasota, the state of Florida is missing out on hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue.
That’s why Gruters is once again trying to garner support for his Senate Bill 126, which he says would fix Florida’s online sales tax problem.
Under the proposed legislation, Florida would collect sales tax on the front end of online retail transactions, instead of relying on consumers to pay the tax separately after the fact. Essentially, the law would enable the state to collect taxes that are, for now, going uncollected.
Gruters says this would generating upwards of $500,000,000 in revenue for the state every year – without raising taxes.
Gruters first introduced the bill in the 2019 legislative session, but it died in committee before reaching the Senate floor. He hopes to garner more support for the bill in the upcoming legislative session, which will convene on January 14th in Tallahassee.
You can read the entire online sales tax bill here:
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