SCOTUS AND MUELLER PATHS MIGHT CROSS | Justices To Review Online Sales Tax Issue | Gorsuch Gets Backup From Former Clerk
April 13, 2018
TAX DAY BOUT TO BLOW UP
|Joyce M. Rosenberg with The Associated Press reports retailers are crossing their fingers for a Supreme Court resolution to a decades-old dispute: whether companies must collect sales tax on items sold in a state where they don’t have a physical presence. Should the court side with the government, thousands of small businesses could have to start charging their out-of-state customers. But retailers who currently collect sales tax believe their competitors have an unfair advantage when they don’t have to do the same.
THIS IS US
|“Our small Internet business will end if the Supreme Court makes us pay state sales taxes.” That’s the headline from John and Denise Davis writing in USA Today about the upcoming Supreme Court case on internet sales tax. They started a “mom and pop” online retail store to help pay for the adoption and fostering of two children. Together they write, “If the Supreme Court reverses its precedent and allows states to enforce sales taxes on online sales, it won’t affect the Amazons, Walmarts, Targets and other big retailers. They have all become ‘multichannel’ retailers selling from their physical stores and distribution centers in almost every state and online. They collect and pay state taxes because of their physical presence in those states. For these large retailers and many other multichannel sellers, tracking the complexities of taxes across the 45 states that levy sales taxes is just another back office process, and they have the staff and budget to do it. For us, an Internet sales tax would mean the certain end of our business. We can’t afford specialty software to help us manage taxes. We don’t have the staff, lawyers or accountants. It’s just us.”
WHY FIT IN WHEN YOU WERE BORN TO STAND OUT
|Former law clerk to JUSTICE NEIL GORSUCH, Alex Harris, writes in The Hill about his former boss and his reputation after only one year on the high court. Harris says that despite what people might think about Gorsuch, he’s going to fit in just fine among the ranks of past, present and future justices of the Supreme Court.
HERE'S LOOKIN AT YOU, SCOTUS
|Richard Pierce explains in The Hill why the solicitor general has taken up a bizarre position in the upcoming Supreme Court case, Lucia v. Securities and Exchange Commission. Two words: ROBERT MUELLER. Pierce points out, “If the court were to accept the solicitor general’s argument in Lucia, it would give the president a green light to fire Mueller either by referring to the court’s opinion holding that Congress cannot limit the power of an agency head to remove an administrative law judge or by referring to the court’s opinion interpreting ‘for cause’ to include virtually any reason given by an agency head. It will be interesting to see whether the justices refer to the obvious link between the solicitor general’s position in Lucia and the president’s belief that he can fire Mueller when they hear the arguments this month.”
SCOTUS VIEWS
The Blagojevich Case Ripe For Supreme Court Review
The Hill“The Supreme Court should hear Blagojevich’s appeal and settle the law. Uncertainty about what federal law permits and criminalizes is something that should not be tolerated; especially when that uncertainty involves an activity — political fundraising — that the Supreme Court itself has called ‘unavoidable so long as election campaigns are financed by private contributions or expenditures.'”
This Supreme Court Ruling Is Alarming For Black People With Mental Illness
CNN“Sotomayor, who was joined in the dissent by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, warned that the doctrine of limited immunity for police is being used as ‘an absolute shield for law enforcement officers.’ She’s right. I see that shield allowing more and more officers who use excessive and often deadly force – especially on unarmed people of color and those with mental illness – to get away with murder.”
OTHER NEWS
Supreme Court Case Tests Weight Of Old Native American Treaties In 21st Century
The Conversation“On April 18, the United States Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Washington v. United States, which pits the state of Washington against the United States and 21 Indian tribes. The main question in the case is narrow – whether the state must quickly replace hundreds of culverts that allow the flow of water under roads but also block salmon migration. Yet the underlying issue is far broader.”