2019 Text 4（英语一）美国扩征 "网络税"

Text 4

States will be able to force more people to pay sales tax when they make online purchases under a Supreme Court decision Thursday that will leave shoppers with lighter wallets but is a big financial win for states.

The Supreme Court's opinion Thursday overruled a pair of decades-old decisions that states said cost them billions of dollars in lost revenue annually.

The decisions made it more difficult for states to collect sales tax on certain online purchases.

The cases the court overturned said that if a business was shipping a customer's purchase to a state where the business didn't have a physical presence such as a warehouse or office, the business didn't have to collect sales tax for the state.

Customers were generally responsible for paying the sales tax to the state themselves if they weren't charged it, but most didn't realize they owed it and few paid.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that the previous decisions were flawed.

"Each year the physical presence rule becomes further removed from economic reality and results in significant revenue losses to the States," he wrote in an opinion joined by four other justices.

Kennedy wrote that the rule " 'limited' states ability to seek long-term prosperity and has prevented market participants from competing on an even playing field. "

The ruling is a victory for big chains with a presence in many states since they usually collect sales tax on online purchases already.