Streamlined Sales Tax Governing Board

The effort that became the Streamlined Sales Tax Governing Board began in March 2000. The goal of this effort is to find solutions for the complexity in state sales tax systems that resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court holding (Bellas Hess v. Illinois and Quill Corp. v. North Dakota) that a state may not require a seller that does not have a physical presence in the state to collect tax on sales into the state. The Court ruled that the existing system was too complicated to impose on a business that did not have a physical presence in the state. The Court said Congress has the authority to allow states to require remote sellers to collect tax. The result of this work is the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement. The purpose of the Agreement is to simplify and modernize sales and use tax administration in order to substantially reduce the burden of tax compliance. The Agreement focuses on improving sales and use tax administration systems for all sellers and for all types of commerce through all of the following: 1. State level administration of sales and use tax collections. 2. Uniformity in the state and local tax bases. 3. Uniformity of major tax base definitions. 4. Central, electronic registration system for all member states. 5. Simplification of state and local tax rates. 6. Uniform sourcing rules for all taxable transactions. 7. Simplified administration of exemptions. 8. Simplified tax returns. 9. Simplification of tax remittances. 10. Protection of consumer privacy. Today twenty-four states have adopted the simplification measures in the Agreement (representing over 31 percent of the population) and more states are moving to adopt the simplification measure.