Tax and Budget

In South Dakota v. Wayfair South Dakota is asking the Supreme Court to overrule precedent and hold that states and local governments may require retailers with no in-state physical presence to collect sales tax. The National Conference of State Legislatures estimated that states lost $23.3 billion in 2012 from being prohibited from collecting sales tax from online and catalog purchases. 

In 1967 in National Bellas Hess  v. Department of Revenue of Illinois, the Supreme Court held that per its Commerce Clause jurisprudence, states and local governments cannot require businesses to collect sales tax unless the business has a physical presence in the state.

Twenty-five years later in Quill v. North Dakota (1992), the Supreme Court reaffirmed the physical presence requirement but admitted that “contemporary Commerce Clause jurisprudence might not dictate the same result” as the Court had reached in Bellas Hess.

While state policy makers frequently express concern about the increasing percentage of state funds required to fund their Medicaid programs, the programs bring in large amounts of federal dollars to states. Across all states, two thirds of all federal grant funds received by states in 2017 are for Medicaid health services for low-income, disabled and elderly individuals. 

A recent report by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows the continued decline in the number of Americans who hunt. Currently, only about 5 percent of people 16 and over hunt, whereas it was nearly double that five decades ago. Less people acquiring a hunting license has created funding problems for state conservation programs,...

The State and Local Legal Center (SLLC) filed a Supreme Court amicus brief in one of the most important cases of the organization's 35-year tenure:  South Dakota v. Wayfair.  

In this case South Dakota is asking the Supreme Court to rule that states and local governments may require retailers with no in-state physical presence to collect sales tax. Ruling this way will require the Supreme Court to overturn long-standing precedent.  

Wisconsin lawmakers have eliminated a decades-old state property tax that had been used to protect public and private forestlands. This change will result in savings of about $27 for the average homeowner and an annual loss in state revenue of approximately $90 million, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. The state will instead use general-fund dollars to pay for programs related to fire prevention, pest control, land acquisition, recreation and overall forest health.

The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether states may require out-of-state retailers to collect sales tax.

In Quill Corp. v. North Dakota (1992), the Supreme Court held that states cannot require retailers with no in-state physical presence to collect sales tax. South Dakota asks the Supreme Court to overturn Quill in South Dakota v. Wayfair. 

The Council of State Governments will release a new report, "Diabetes in the United States: Examining Growth Trends, State Funding Sources and Economic Impact", on state spending for diabetes at the 2017 CSG National Conference in Las Vegas on Dec. 15. Click here for press release. 

CSG, with assistance from the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors, surveyed all 50 states to discover how many states...