Dive Brief:
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The U.S. House of Representatives Tuesday passed a bill that forbids taxation of Internet access and sent it on to the Senate, where it is likely to pass.
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UPDATE: The law to prevent taxes on web access has expired and been renewed; this time Congress could make it permanent. The bill went through the House without the consideration of another bill, the Internet Tax Fairness Act, which Democrats had tried to tie to it. A bipartisan group of Senators Thursday successfully did so.
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UPDATE: It's unclear how House lawmakers will deal with the development.
Dive Insight:
UPDATE: Democrats in the House this week scrambled to tie the less controversial Internet Access Tax Act (barring taxes on internet access) to the Internet Fairness Tax Act (requiring collection of state taxes) to no avail, thanks to strong anti-tax sentiment in the House. At the last moment, the Senate, in a bipartisan move, has done just that. The bill, which requires web retailers and out-of-state catalog companies to collect state sales taxes, has struggled to gain passage in Congress for years, despite winning bipartisan approval in the Senate in March. Brick-and-mortar retailers and the National Retail Federation support the bill. Hope, however slim, remains alive.