In Utah, It’s Yes to Taxing Strip Clubs & No to Taxing Escort Agencies

In an early holiday gift to escort service agencies in Utah, the Supreme Court upheld in a majority opinion the state’s Sexually Explicit Business and Escort Service Tax statute insofar as it relates to the imposition of said tax on erotic dance clubs but not on escort service agencies, decided in terms of First Amendment [...]

Amazon.com & other online retailers costing states $7B a year?

In these stormy days of the ongoing saga between Amazon.com and a number of states (see here, here, here, and here), the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policies Priorities released a riveting report this week concluding, among other findings, that Amazon’s arguments against collecting sales taxes do not withstand scrutiny – costing states up to [...]

Florida’s AG Files Against Expedia & Orbitz for Hotel Sales Taxes

Are Expedia and Orbitz paying the appropriate amount of sales taxes to the State of Florida for online-purchased hotel room rentals? Not according to Florida’s Attorney General Bill McCollum, who recently filed suit in Tallahassee for up to hundreds of millions of dollars in back taxes. In a line of online travel cases that essentially [...]

College Privilege Tax in Pittsburgh Could Be the Mayor’s Most Idiotic Idea Yet

Between recovering from the flu and addressing a handful of onerous tasks, I’ve let this blog lag for nearly two weeks now. It took what could be one of the stupidest moves ever by a Rust Belt mayor to jolt me out of complacency to write again. Just barely out of school himself (he graduated [...]