Sound Off is a public forum. Articles are selected from letters to the editor or may be written specifically for this feature. Today, 39th District Rep. Dan Kristiansen (R-Snohomish), argues that a new Washington state tax on Internet sales hurts consumers, businesses and even government.

Internet e-commerce sales are exploding — more than $32 billion nationwide in 2008. For years, many online sales have been tax free.

Some businesses without an online presence complained, feeling they were losing customers to Internet sales because of the tax discount. Governments also saw they were losing tax revenue to online sales.

In 2003, Washington joined more than 20 states in a “Streamlined Sales Tax Project” to establish infrastructure for states to collect taxes on internet and out-of-state mail order purchases.

Beginning July 1, Washington will collect sales taxes from online retailers who have volunteered to collect those taxes.

It’s the result of Senate Bill 5089, enacted by the Legislature last year.

Initially, the new law seems to level the playing field for retail sales and may recapture $191 million in sales taxes lost to Internet sales.

However, the devil is in the details.

Currently, sales taxes are based on the rate at the point of sale. If you buy an item in Port Orchard, the city gets sales tax revenue from your purchase.

If you shop locally but buy elsewhere (over the Internet or not), anything you pay in sales tax also goes elsewhere.

For example, if you purchase a sofa in Tacoma, but live in Port Orchard, the sales tax goes to Tacoma. If the sofa is delivered from the store’s warehouse in Everett, then Everett receives the sales tax.

The new law establishes “destination sourcing.” Under this method, in the example just mentioned, Port Orchard would receive the sales tax — not Tacoma or Everett.

While that may sound good, let’s take it one more step. Suppose a Port Orchard business is selling a product and most of those items are ordered on-line from all corners of the state.

The sales tax would go to the destination from which the product was ordered.

Port Orchard loses out.

The biggest challenge is that the Port Orchard business must know every city/county/state tax rate in Washington and collect taxes according to that corresponding rate — even if it is just selling a 30-cent widget.

It’s not only a bookkeeping nightmare for businesses, but the state Department of Revenue admits it doesn’t even know how it will track these sales.

This change also means large revenue losses for some cities (as much as $400,000 for one city in my district), while others gain (Sedro-Woolley, for example, is projected to gain up to $9,000 per year).

For cities that lose revenue, they may have to cut services, raise taxes, or seek the Legislature’s help at a time when the state budget is in a $2.4 billion deficit.

In the meantime, consumers are hit with an additional tax.

If you shop on the Internet, it will mean more money out of your pocket. If you own a business, it means a giant tax-collection headache, plus additional expenses.

And for taxpayers, it means more bureaucratic administrative expenses as the state tries to “streamline” more money from our pocketbooks into its tax coffers.

Furthermore, Congress hasn’t even authorized states’ ability to collect Internet taxes.

For those reasons, I voted against this measure.