Why Blue Nile Is No Longer Shipping to South Dakota

(jckonline.com) – Last month, Blue Nile announced that it would temporarily no longer ship to South Dakota, in response to a new state law that says remote sellers must collect sales tax from local residents, even if - and this where the law differs from the similar state laws out there - they have no physical presence in the state (known as nexus). The rule applies only to companies that sell more than $100,000 or process more than 200 in-state transactions a year. The South Dakota bill is the latest turn in a seemingly endless debate that began in 1992, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Quill v. North Dakota that states do not have the right to collect sales tax from remote sellers if they do not have an in-state presence. But it also left the door open for Congress to supersede the decision. In recent years, members of both parties - as well as President Obama - have expressed support for legislation that would let states collect sales tax from remote sellers.