Our View: State should push internet sales tax

It’s another year and another financial crisis looms overhead for municipal governments in Sweetwater County.

Sales taxes, the lifeblood of any incorporated town or city, continues to be in decline and another round of budgetary shortfalls are expected if the trend isn’t reversed.

With sales tax currently down 15 percent from last year, elected officials in Green River and Rock Springs will likely be forced to make additional spending cuts to balance their budgets.

While it’s easy to blame the problem on a sluggish economy and declines in the energy industry, those factors are only part of the problem. With those issues, spending has decreased – companies servicing the local gas fields are not buying their fleet vehicles from local auto dealerships for example. However, another aspect of the issue has gone largely unnoticed until recently. 

With the rise of internet-based shops such as Amazon.com, as well as the recent closure of local chain stores such as Hastings, Sports Authority and J.C. Penney; more people are purchasing goods online. While the convenience of ordering something using a tablet or phone can be appealing, especially when compared to driving on slick roads to a local business, one of the inherent problems associated with online commerce is the lack of sales tax charged to purchases.

We admit the lack of a sales tax, as well as minimal shipping costs for the largest e-commerce merchants makes purchasing online an attractive prospect, but there are other costs associated with those purchases.

Without a sales tax, money that would have gone to fund police and fire protection is nonexistent. Money that would have gone to maintaining Green River’s many beautiful parks doesn’t come to the city at all and funds to ensure our streets get plowed end up in a bank far from Green River, Wyo.

As the Wyoming Legislature deals with its budgetary crisis, one of the issues it should look at is how much Wyoming residents spend through the e-commerce giants and make sure the state is getting a cut of that pie. 

It might not be the magic bullet needed to solve all of fiscal woes faced by both local and state governments, but sales taxes levied off of online purchases could go a long way in maintaining the high-quality services we’re accustomed to in Green River, as well as making sure our neighbors working in the public sector don’t worry about limited revenues resulting in cut jobs.