LANSING – With the U.S. Senate expected to approve the so-called Marketplace Fairness Act when it returns to session in a week, state officials support the measure, especially as the latest estimates from the Michigan Department of Treasury show losses from sales both through mail-order and the Internet could total $491 million in the 2013-14 fiscal year.

The U.S. Senate approved a procedural path for it to vote on the Marketplace Fairness Act when it returns to session next week. While senators from states that do not collect sales taxes are trying to block or amend the measure, and anti-tax groups are fighting it as well, observers say that Senate members are listening more to their local retailers and preparing to support the proposal.

It would still have to go through the U.S. House, which unlike the U.S. Senate is controlled by Republicans, but observers think the measure has a good shot at winning passage there as well.

Michigan officials have supported Congress enacting a proposal that would effectively overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s Quill decision from the early 1990s that held states could not tax sales from other states, at the time conducted by mail or phone, if the seller did not have a physical presence in the state.

Terry Stanton, spokesperson for the department, reemphasized that support on Monday, saying the issue has always been and remains one of tax fairness.

The state is one of 24 states that is part of the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement, which has been in operation since 2005. Under that agreement, the states work together to develop smoother administration of sales tax collections and distribution, including collections of taxes from catalog and internet sales.

Also, since 1999, Michigan has included a line in its tax return that would let individuals pay use tax on sales they had made. The most recent data on those collections comes from 2011 when approximately $5.6 million was collected from nearly 108,000 taxpayers.

That amount is also an estimated 1.4 percent of the total catalog and internet sales by residents, the state estimated.

The anticipated revenue loss of $491 million in the 2013-14 fiscal year comes from the most recent work the state has done on the issue, a report issued in December that got little attention at the time.

The $491 million estimate would be a 6.7 percent increase over the $460 million the state is expected to lose in the current 2012-13 fiscal year. It would also be a 48 percent increase over the $332 million the state estimated it lost in 2007.

Estimate loses have gone up every year since 2007, and total an anticipated $3.1 billion since then.

Losses from mail order sales have been relatively flat, and are estimated at about $219 million in FY14, the state said. But losses from internet sales have grown every year and are estimated to hit $272 million in FY14.

Nationally, tax scholars have indicated that all the states and localities that charge sales taxes will lose more than $14 billion in revenues from uncollected and unremitted sales taxes.

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