Local travel technology companies, a key segment of our industry, are asking the Illinois technology community to support the Internet Tax Fairness Act by signing on to the industry coalition.

More information on the Act can be found at www.travelersfirst.org and below. Please take a moment to weigh in .

The Internet Travel Tax Fairness Act 

1. To purpose of the Internet Travel Tax Fairness Act is to promote employment in the travel and tourism industry by ensuring a robust online travel industry through fair and equitable tax treatment.
2. The Act creates a national standard that will govern the taxation of travel booking services.
3. To deal with the challenge of over 7000 taxing jurisdictions in the U.S., this Act centralizes taxing authority over travel booking services in the 50 states.
4. All travel components (hotel, air, etc.) booked by a travel intermediary will remain fully subject to all existing tax levies at the federal, state and local levels.
5. Localities will continue to be able to levy and collect hotel occupancy taxes on the amount a hotel receives in rent and any other existing levies including car rental and tourist development taxes.
6. Hotel occupancy taxes (or any other tax) will not be permitted to be levied by a locality on travel booking services (“facilitation fees”) regardless of whether those charges are itemized or bundled within a transaction.
7. States, however, will retain the authority to levy taxes on travel booking services, which are currently not generally subject to transaction taxes.
8. States will retain the authority to levy and collect general business taxes (income taxes) on travel booking companies.
9. The legislation will not affect any currently pending lawsuit or administrative proceeding.
10. The legislation does not impact state taxing authority because travel booking services are interstate commerce.
11. Likewise, no state or locality has ever collected taxes on travel booking services and will therefore not suffer any reduction in tax revenue.
12. Congress has the authority and duty to protect interstate commerce from unreasonable state and local burdens. Internet transactions are the purest form of interstate commerce.
13. This legislation does not narrow or expand a taxpayer’s due process and commerce clause rights under the U.S. Constitution.
14. The legislation scores at zero and will have no impact on the U.S. Treasury.