Laws and Ordinances

Amazon Terminates Affiliates in a Bid to Intimidate State Lawmakers

March 12, 2010

Amazon is treating its Colorado sales affiliates as "human shields," to use the words of one Denver Post columnist, in what has become a aggressive campaign to overturn a new Colorado law and scare other states away from extending sales taxes to large online retailers. More

Banks and Small Business Lending

February 10, 2010

This article was originally published on Huffington Post as part of a partnership with their Move Your Money campaign.

Banking consolidation was constricting the flow of loans to small businesses long before the recession. So it's no surprise that the money taxpayers have spent over the last sixteen months shoring up big banks has done nothing to free up credit for small businesses.

To do that, we need to focus on expanding the capacity of small banks to lend to local businesses that have, as a result of the recession and through no fault of their own, become riskier investments. A key issue is whether the Senate will quickly reauthorize a critical loan-guarantee program.
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A New Deal for Local Economies

By Stacy Mitchell on December 2, 2009

In this lecture, delivered at the Bristol Schumacher Conference in Great Britain, Stacy Mitchell proposes a set of new rules — policies that would foster local self-reliance and refashion the economy for long-term viability.

Scattered here and there, the seeds of a new economy are taking root. Locally grown food has soared in popularity. Farmers markets are multiplying. Support for independent retailers is on the rise. But despite these promising shifts, local businesses are likely to remain on the economic margins without fundamental changes in public policy. More

A New Deal for Local Economies - PDF for Printing [pdf]

Soaring Credit Card Transaction Fees Squeeze Independent Businesses

May 5, 2009

Independent businesses are largely at the mercy of Visa and MasterCard when it comes to the fees they must pay every time they swipe a credit card. These fees, which are ultimately passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices, have soared from $27 billion in 2004 to $48 billion last year (or $427 per household).

Recognizing the tremendous market power held by card processors, many countries now regulate credit card transaction fees, setting them at rates as low as one-sixth of what U.S. businesses pay. More

GAO Report Confirms Need for Regulation of Credit Card Processing Fees

November 23, 2009

Credit card processing is not only highly concentrated - MasterCard, Visa, and American Express control 93 percent of the market - but competition among the card processors tends to raise, not lower, the fees they charge merchants, according to a new report from the U.S. General Accounting Office. The report's findings point to the need for regulation to protect independent businesses from excessive card processing fees. The GAO examines several policy approaches, including a cap on rates. More

Four Corporate Tax Loopholes States Should Close

March 12, 2009

Doing so would ease budget shortfalls and restore a measure of fairnessfor small businesses, which lack access to these loopholes and end upshouldering a heavier tax burden than their big competitors. Some evidence even suggests that leveling the playing field may help spur entrepreneurialism and job growth. More

Years of Subsidizing Retail and Nothing to Show for It

February 18, 2009

"Despite an enormous commitment of public funding to support retail development, neither taxable sales nor retail employment has grown significantly region wide," concludes a new report by the East-West Gateway Council of Governments, a metropolitan planning and problem-solving organization governed by top officials from the region's seven counties and the city of St. Louis.

The report also concludes that development incentives have done nothing to boost tax revenue in the metro and "the overall fiscal health of local governments in the region is increasingly tenuous." More

The Benefits of North Dakota's Pharmacy Ownership Law

January 26, 2009

A new report by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) concludes that repealing North Dakota's Pharmacy Ownership Law would cost the state millions of dollars in annual economic activity and tax revenue, dramatically reduce the number of pharmacies serving rural areas, and degrade the overall quality of pharmacy services in the state.

The Pharmacy Ownership Law, which requires pharmacies to be majority-owned by a licensed pharmacist, is under fire from national chain drugstores and mass merchandisers such as Wal-Mart that want to operate pharmacies in the state. More

Retailers (Legally) Skimming Sales Taxes Paid by Customers

November 25, 2008

Little-noticed laws in more than half the states allow retailers to keep a portion of the sales taxes they collect from shoppers. The practice is costing states over $1 billion a year and lining the pockets of large chains, notably Wal-Mart.

These are the conclusions of Skimming the Sales Tax, a comprehensive national study of the issue just released by Good Jobs First, a non-profit research center based in Washington, DC.

The eye-opening report comes at a time when many states are facing severe budget deficits, forcing service cuts and tax increases. "This legal skimming is depriving governments of desperately needed revenue," said Good Jobs First Executive Director Greg LeRoy.

The problem is particularly acute in thirteen states that impose no ceiling on the amount retailers can keep (see the map ). More

More States Close Tax Loophole that Gives Chains an Edge

March 6, 2008

For years, chain retailers have exploited a loophole present in the tax laws of about half the states to escape paying billions of dollars in state income taxes. Efforts to close these loopholes have faced an uphill struggle, but the momentum may finally be shifting, thanks to research that has exposed the extent of the problem and its primary corporate beneficiaries, as well as new activism by independent business owners, who are breaking rank with powerful business groups to call for tax fairness. More