Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said yesterday that President Donald Trump “feels strongly” that the U.S. should impose a sales tax on purchases made over the Internet, Bloomberg News reported. Mnuchin, speaking at a hearing before the House Ways and Means Committee, said that he has spoken personally with Trump about the issue, and that the president “does feel strongly” that the tax should be applied. The prospect of an online sales tax has been a long-standing point of contention between Internet-based retailers and their brick-and-mortar rivals. Trump has previously gone after Internet giant Amazon.com Inc., saying that last year that it does “great damage to tax paying retailers.” Amazon began collecting sales taxes on purchases in all states that levy them earlier last year, despite an exemption that allows online retailers to avoid collecting them in places where they don’t have a physical presence. But Amazon still avoids charging shoppers sales taxes when they buy from one of its third-party vendors — sales that make up about half the company’s volume.
