Illinois shoppers to start paying state sales tax on Amazon purchases on Feb. 1; federal online tax bill still stalled

Attention Illinois online shoppers. You only have a few days left before Amazon starts tacking your state's 6.25 percent sales tax onto your purchases.

This coming Sunday, Feb. 1, Illinois will become the 24th state in which the giant online retailer will collect sales tax.

Photo by MikeBlogs via Flickr Creative Commons

The Seattle-based company already is adding sales tax amounts to invoices for products sent to customers in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

On Jan. 1, 2016, South Carolina Amazon customers will start paying sales tax on their purchases.

Second tax shot: Illinois lawmakers passed their online sales tax measure last summer after the Illinois Supreme Court in 2013 threw out an earlier attempt.

The court had ruled that the previous law violated federal rules against discriminatory taxes on digital transactions.

Illinois shoppers actually have been enjoying a month-long reprieve from the Amazon tax. The state, however, granted a month-long grace period for online retailers.

So head to your computers or digital devices now, Illinois online shoppers. In just a few days, your purchases will cost you a few dollars more.

Meanwhile in Washington, D.C.: An effort to implement nationwide collection of online sales taxes fell short as the 113^th Congress wrapped up last month.

The Marketplace Fairness Act easily sailed through the Senate way back in March 2013. But despite pressure from supporters on and off Capitol Hill during the December 2014 lame duck session, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) refused to put the bill up for a vote in that chamber.

So far, the bill hasn't been reintroduced in either the House or Senate in the 114^th Congress.

You also might find these items of interest:

• States could get more money by modernizing sales tax laws
• Useless use taxes lead to national online sales tax collection
• House panel finally looking at Internet sales tax legislation