The Alliance for Main Street Fairness

Back in September, I wrote a little about internet sales tax, and the anger the issue provokes among independent retailers across the country. At the urging of Peter Rose of the Chelsea Group in Wyandotte, Mich., I’d like to bring up the issue again and post a video released by a group called The Alliance for Main Street Fairness. That organization is dedicated to closing the infamous internet sales tax loopholes that allow many American consumers to get tax-free merchandise by purchasing online, rather than in local shops.

The Alliance for Main Street Fairness sent independent retailers to Washington, D.C. to have it out with their congressional representatives and urge them to support the Marketplace Fairness Act in the Senate and the Marketplace Equity Act in the House. The video below consists of some interviews with those retailers.

The first of many independent retailers to speak out in this video is a menswear retailer, Steve Ashworth, owner of the 75-year-old Ashworth’s Clothing in Fuquay-Verina, North Carolina. “We feel that the sales tax not being collected by the online retailers—when we each sell the same products—is not fair,” he said.

Other retailers included a couple of jewelry stores, a bicycle shop and a baby clothes store. Watch below.