Seventy-five percent of online buyers will buy less on the Internet
if sales taxes are instituted on the World Wide Web, according to
a survey by BizRate.com.
BizRate’s Flash Survey compiled feedback from nearly 7,000
online buyers regarding online sales and taxation to examine the
possible impact of a tax on e-commerce sales.
The survey was
conducted over a two-day period in August in association with
the Association for Interactive Media (AIM).
While 38 percent of respondents said they had at some point
paid sales tax for any online purchase, 88 percent said they did
not pay sales tax for their most recent purchase, and nearly half
would not have made their most recent purchase if it included tax.
Other findings of the BizRate.com survey include:
- 46 percent of respondents have never paid sales tax for any online purchase
- 55 percent of respondents were aware that the US Congress was studying the
need for a sales tax on Internet purchases - 8 percent of respondents said they would never shop online again with an
Internet sales tax.
“These results emphasize that a domestic tax on e-commerce could stifle the ability for
US merchants to succeed in a global marketplace,” said Ben Isaacson, acting
executive director of AIM. “In the virtual environment of the Web, consumers don’t
recognize state borders and are now telling us they will make the same purchases
anywhere in the world to get a discount.”