Congress has authorized the formation of the Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce to study this question and to offer some recommendations. This committee has met three times and must make its recommendations to Congress by April 21, 2000. One more meeting is scheduled for March 21 and 22, but so far no major agreements or recommendations have resulted from the committee's work. One source suggests that no real recommendations will be made by the committee because of the vastness of the problem. They believe that traditional retailers are being penalized because they are required by law to collect sales taxes on items they sell.
Consumers can save at least the amount of the sales tax by buying on the Internet.
On the other hand, representatives of e-commerce companies argued that their firms were already bearing a substantial tax burden and should not be penalized for their innovation. Another consideration takes into account purchases made through European Internet companies. Andrew Marsland, head of an electronic commerce working group at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, argued in favor of having U.S. state governments tax Europeans for goods and services sold to them by American-based Internet companies in their respective states. He feels that an online consumption tax should be assessed in the country where the good or service will be used. In the process of determining if and how Internet transactions will be taxed, there are a couple of major stumbling blocks.