Missouri Lawmaker Prefiles Remote Seller and Marketplace Facilitator Bill

A prefiled Missouri bill would create an economic nexus threshold requiring remote sellers and marketplace facilitators to collect and remit sales tax beginning in January 2021.

Under S.B. 805, prefiled by Sen. Denny Hoskins (R) December 27, a vendor has substantial nexus with Missouri if it had at least $100,000 in gross receipts from sales of tangible personal property in the previous 12 months. Marketplace facilitators that meet this economic nexus threshold would have to collect and remit use tax on their direct and third-party sales. The bill does not include a sales transaction threshold that most states have in place.

Marketplace facilitators would be required to provide purchasers with a statement or invoice proving that the sales and use tax was collected and will be remitted. The bill would also provide protection for marketplace facilitators from class actions that might arise from an overpayment of sales or use tax collected on retail sales.

Beginning January 1, 2021, the bill would also reduce local sales tax rates to an amount that would produce approximately the same amount of revenue collected from such sales tax in 2019, plus 5 percent. The current state sales tax rate is 4.225 percent.

S.B. 805 would require the Department of Revenue’s website mapping feature to include use tax information. It would also require the director of revenue to provide and maintain a free electronic database for taxing jurisdiction boundary changes and tax rates. The bill would amend the language required on a local use tax ballot measure to include a statement that “approval of this question will eliminate the disparity in the tax collected by local and out-of-state sellers by imposing the same rate on all sellers.”

The bill's summary says it is substantially similar to S.B. 529, which was prefiled December 1, and S.B. 189, which failed May 17, 2019. If enacted, S.B. 805 will take effect on August 28, 2020.

According to a December 12 Tax Foundation report, Missouri and Florida are the only states that levy a sales tax but have not enacted legislation requiring remote sellers to collect and remit the tax. Missouri’s next legislative session begins January 8, 2020.