Alabama Streamlined Sales Tax Commission Issues Landmark Report

The ten-member Commission created by Act 2011-563 of the Alabama Legislature, charged with studying the feasibility of Alabama becoming a member of the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement and what statutory and administrative changes that effort would entail, issued its preliminary report and recommendations on Monday afternoon, November 28. The report is subject to public comment for the next 45 days and constitutes Phase I of II of the Commission’s work.

In a refreshing spirit of cooperation between the Alabama Department of Revenue (ADOR) and the self-administered cities and counties (i.e., those local governments that not only levy but also collect their own sales and use taxes), the Commission unanimously agreed that the ADOR would be the “single entity administrator” should Congress enact either the Main Street Fairness Act or one of the two recently-introduced pieces of legislation now pending in Congress. If
that were to occur, Alabama would rejoin the vast majority of states that require the state department of revenue or similar taxing authority to be the sole administrator for both state and local sales taxes. That did not sit well with some of the interested parties, including the two largest contract auditing firms.

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