S.B. 50, introduced by Sen. Joe Gruters, R-Sarasota, was referred Monday to the Senate's Commerce and Tourism; Appropriations; and Finance and Tax committees after being filed Friday. The bill would require remote sellers and marketplace facilitators such as Amazon.com to collect and remit tax if they have more than $100,000 in sales into the state during the 2020 calendar year. If enacted, the bill would take effect July 1, 2021.
The bill clarifies that marketplace providers wouldn't include travel agency services, certain delivery network companies or payment processing businesses.
The Senate bill is a companion to H.B. 15, introduced in the state House on Nov. 30, which would make similar changes to remote sellers and marketplace facilitators. The House bill includes a threshold for remitting and collecting sales and use tax at 200 or more sales and has some of the bill's marketplace sections apply as of Oct. 1, 2021.
Florida's legislative session begins March 2. Sunshine State lawmakers weighed similar proposals in the last few years before shelving them amid some concerns from Republicans who perceived the bills as imposing a tax increase.
Gruters' office didn't immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday. But he has previously sponsored similar legislation that was withdrawn after failing to clear all the necessary Senate committees.
The previous bill, which would have taken effect July 1, was estimated to bring in more than $600 million in state and local tax revenue for the upcoming fiscal year.
Florida and Missouri are the only states with a sales tax that haven't begun requiring remote sellers to collect and remit taxes after the U.S. Supreme Court's 2018 Wayfair decision, which did away with the physical presence standard for sales and use taxes. Florida is also one of three states that lack a tax requirement for marketplaces.
While Wayfair-related proposals have been scuttled in the past, pressure on lawmakers to pass a bill that would tax online sales may be higher when lawmakers convene as they work to address a revenue shortfall from the spread of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Because Florida does not levy a personal income tax, the state relies heavily on sales taxes to balance its budget and has been hit hard by a downturn in tourism amid the pandemic.
Sales tax collections plunged $1.8 billion below projections from April to July before exceeding estimates that were adjusted to account for the pandemic in the following months, according to a recent report from the Florida Office of Economic and Demographic Research. The report said that sales taxes accounted for nearly 92% of October's gain of $313.5 million above the month's adjusted revenue projections.
But the pandemic's overall impact on the state's fiscal health remains grim. From April through October, Florida's tax collections were more than $2.3 billion below January estimates, despite coming in at $35.4 million above those initial projections in October, according to the report.
Revenue estimates from prior online sales tax bills have said that a Wayfair-related tax could generate nearly $700 million in state and local tax revenue annually. A fiscal note on S.B. 50 wasn't immediately available.
Other states in Florida's region, such as South Carolina and neighboring Alabama, have thresholds of $100,000 and $250,000, respectively, without a transaction threshold.
Representatives for the Republican and Democratic leadership in the Senate did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.
--Additional reporting by Paul Williams and Daniel Tay. Editing by Neil Cohen.
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