Ohioans 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 an Ohio-specific poll that shows that roughly seven in ten Ohioans support legislation requiring sales tax collection at the time of purchase. This represents an increase of four percentage points since 2013.

"A significant majority of Ohioans 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. "Ohioans 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 also found that 82% of Ohioans think collecting sales tax from online-only vendors at the time of purchase is easier, a number that has held steady since 2013. This is the only national poll that has tracked attitudes among Ohioans on these two issues for two consecutive years.

The poll identified a number of key findings, including:

• 69% of Ohioans support federal legislation that would require online-only sellers to collect sales tax at the time of purchase.
• 82% of Ohioans think it would be easier to collect sales tax from online-only vendors at the time of purchase.
• 94% of Ohioans say local retailers are important to their community's economic health.

"It is abundantly clear that when Ohioans 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 252 adults, 122 men and 130 women 18 years of age and older, living in the state of Ohio. Interviewing for this CARAVAN® Survey was completed on August 22-28, 2014. 145 interviews were from the landline sample and 107 interviews from the cell phone sample.

SOURCE ICSC

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