Overton County Pushing For Equal Internet Sales Tax Distribution

Overton County Commissioners signed a resolution Monday pushing state lawmakers to equalize internet sales tax distribution.

County Executive Ben Danner said taxes from online orders often times go towards cities rather than the counties the buyer lives in.

“When the sales tax comes in, they don’t divide it where the [consumer] is at, they divide it for the percentage of what the city and county’s getting,” Danner said. “We’re just asking to divide it to where it’s supposed to go. A lot of the people out in the county are ordering these things off the internet, and the sales tax is not going to the county. So we’re just asking that they equally divide it.”

Danner said increasing the percentage counties receive from online sales tax would mean more funding for projects.

“It depends on where people are buying [products] at, so it wouldn’t be a simple ‘divide it out 50-50′,” Danner said, “but if it were that way, that would be several hundred thousand a year extra going into the county… but that would just keep services off of people’s property taxes.”

Danner said increasing the county’s share would benefit residents by taking pressure off of property taxes.

“To me, that’s the fairest tax, the sales tax. We got a lot of people coming in here buying things, and that sales tax means people at home are not having to pay for services in the county because of that,” Danner said. “As long as sales tax is coming in, that keeps it off [residents’] property taxes and we won’t have to raise property taxes, which none of us want to do. I definitely don’t want to raise anyone’s property taxes because I pay them too and I definitely don’t want to pay any more.”

Putnam County Commissioners have also passed a similar resolution earlier this year asking lawmakers to equalize internet sales tax distribution.