Retailers to Congress: Close Online Loophole Before Alibaba Closes Us

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Dec 01, 2014, 09:41 ET

WASHINGTON, Dec. 1, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- The Alliance for Main Street Fairness (AMSF) launched a television advertising campaign to educate lawmakers on the imminent threat posed by China's online mega-retailer—Alibaba—as it enters the U.S. retail market. Retailers are imploring the U.S. House of Representatives to join the U.S. Senate by passing e-fairness legislation that closes the online sales tax loophole this year.

Alibaba is on pace to become the largest online retailer in the world. Their recent IPO was the largest in Wall Street history, and in one day, Alibaba had more online sales ($9.3 billion) than all U.S. online sales during the Black Friday-Cyber Monday weekend.

Alibaba's emergence in the American retail market will allow them to exploit the online sales tax loophole that has given online retailers an artificial advantage over American brick-and-mortar businesses. This loophole was bad enough as local retailers have competed on an uneven playing field with the likes of Amazon.com, Overstock.com and eBay.com. But the emergence of Alibaba—a company that does more transactions a day than Amazon.com and eBay.com combined—could be a death sentence for thousands of brick-and-mortar businesses.

Local retailers are urgently asking Congress to act before Alibaba gains a foothold in the American market and begins undercutting local Main Street retailers by not collecting the same sales tax they have to collect.

Last year, the U.S Senate passed the Marketplace Fairness Act, which would close the online loophole and restore free market competition to ensure all retailers, regardless of where they are located, play by the same rules. The legislation would require all remote sellers to collect and remit sales tax just like their brick and mortar counterparts.

"Lots of politicians talked a good game this weekend, posting warm and fuzzy statements about Small Business Saturday and support for small businesses on their Facebook pages. But we need Congress to do more than talk, we need them to act to support small businesses," said Joshua Baca, spokesperson for the Alliance for Main Street Fairness. "There will be fewer small businesses to choose from next year if Congress continues to delay and gives companies like Alibaba a special tax advantage over local retailers."

To view the ad, click here.

Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aovmsKCRp10

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SOURCE Alliance for Main Street Fairness