WKRN, Nashville, Tennessee News, Weather and Sports |Businesses owners continue to battle online sales tax fight

Businesses owners continue to battle online sales tax fight

A group of local small business owners renewed their call Thursday for a level playing field with online retailers.

Part of the success for online companies such as Amazon is they have not always charged sales tax to their ever-expanding group of customers.
 
That often tax-free advantage has long irked small business owners such as Susan Cavender of Nashville Trunk and Bag.
 
Cavender must collect state and local tax from her customers that is nearly 10-cents a dollar in Tennessee.

"You know I am paying sales tax to take care of these streets so that my customers can come here and shop," the owner said from her Green Hills area store Thursday.

You sit in a building somewhere as an online retailer, you are not paying for these streets or this infrastructure," she said pointing at nearby Hillsboro Road.  

Nashville Trunk and Bag is part of the group called StandithMainStreet.com.

"We need to keep this in front of everybody until everyone has a fair playing field," Cavender said who has owned her business for three years.

"On Tennessee's Capitol Hill, lawmakers point to Washington for a sales tax solution.

"We can pass laws until we are blue in the face, but doesn't matter until they act on it up there," explained House Democratic Caucus chair Mike Turner.

Tennessee U.S. Senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker are among the sponsors of a bill that would help level the sales tax between online and small businesses, but election year squabbling stands in the way.

"There is such a partisan divide that everyone seems to be sitting on their hands waiting for November," added Republican Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey.

Susan Cavender spoke with Senator Alexander by phone Thursday and said it would not be the last time.

"I know where he lives," laughed the business owner, adding, "And his wife who shops here."

Places like Nashville Trunk and Bag plan to fight until that sale tax playing field is level.

Amazon recently announced plans to open three new distribution centers in Tennessee that includes Wilson and Rutherford counties.

The online retailer also said it would begin paying state and local sales in Tennessee.