1/ Wayfair overturned 50-year-old Supreme Court precedent that held that U.S. states could not force remote sellers to collect sales tax on sales made into the state unless the seller had a physical presence.
https://bit.ly/2YjXidB  (no paywall)

2/ Frustration at the physical-presence barrier resulted in unilateral measures targeting digital companies. Sound familiar? https://bit.ly/2YjXidB 

3/ In Wayfair, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the physical-presence requirement amounted to a tax shelter. https://bit.ly/2YjXidB 

4/ What was meant to be a convenient and clear physical-presence threshold had become vague and unfair as internet commerce grew.
https://bit.ly/2YjXidB 

5/ In Wayfair, Supreme Ct approved South Dakota’s threshold, which required out-of-state sellers to collect sales tax of they had 200 sales or USD 100,000 of sales in a state. (compare DST thresholds of EUR 750M)

6/ Justice Ginsburg referred to South Dakota’s tax on Wayfair and other remote sellers as “equalizing.”
https://bit.ly/2YjXidB 

7/ What does Wayfair tell us about the digital-tax debate?
https://bit.ly/2YjXidB 

8/ But in other ways, the lessons of Wayfair for DSTs are limited. E.g., Because Wayfair involved sales-and-use taxes--not income taxes--it did not raise the same double tax issues that DSTs raise.
https://bit.ly/2YjXidB 

9/ And the Wayfair law was not intentionally discriminatory. The obligation it imposed on out-of-state sellers matched a preexisting obligation on in-state sellers. In contrast, DSTs effectively (and intentionally) exempt domestic digital cos.
https://bit.ly/2YjXidB 

10/ U.S. states can’t discriminate against internet commerce. Federal law forbids states from imposing taxes on digital commerce that do not apply to other commerce.
https://bit.ly/2YjXidB 

11/ The biggest lesson of Wayfair is that temporary solutions often become permanent because powerful business interests lobby to keep them in place (physical presence; fixed place; 750M turnover threshold).
https://bit.ly/2YjXidB