Californians Agree: It's Time to Pass Marketplace Fairness

WASHINGTON, Sept. 18, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) released the results of a California-specific poll that shows that two in three Californians support legislation requiring sales tax collection at the time of purchase.

"A significant majority of Californians support federal legislation and with precious few legislative days left in 2014 it is time for Congress to make Marketplace Fairness a reality this year," said Michael P. Kercheval, president and CEO of ICSC. "Californians from all walks of life and across the political spectrum overwhelmingly agree that the long-term economic health of their communities depend on a level playing field for all businesses."

The poll identified a number of key findings, including:

• 66% of Californians believe that collecting sales tax from online-only vendors at the time of purchase is fairer to local retailers.
• 67% of Californians support federal legislation that would require online-only sellers to collect sales tax at the time of purchase.
• 82% of Californians think it would be easier to collect sales tax from online-only vendors at the time of purchase.
• 96% of Californians say local retailers are important to their community's economic health.

"It is abundantly clear that when Californians understand their current tax liability for online purchases they overwhelmingly support federal legislation that streamlines and simplifies the sales tax collection process," said Betsy Laird, senior vice president of Global Public Policy for ICSC.

ICSC has promoted efairness for over a decade, advocating that a "sale is a sale" regardless of whether the purchase takes place on Main Street, at shopping centers, or over the Internet. For more information about efairness and how the current sales tax system is unable to support the 21^st century retail marketplace, please visit efairness.org.

About ICSC
Founded in 1957, ICSC is the premier global trade association of the shopping center industry. Its more than 66,000 members in over 100 countries include shopping center owners, developers, managers, marketing specialists, investors, retailers and brokers, as well as academics and public officials.  For more information, visit www.icsc.org.

About the Survey
Opinion Research Corporation (ORC) conducted a survey among two probability samples, which, when combined, consists of 249 adults, 121 men and 128 women 18 years of age and older, living in the state of California. Interviewing for this CARAVAN® Survey was completed on August 22-28, 2014. 159 interviews were from the landline sample and 90 interviews from the cell phone sample.

SOURCE ICSC

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