来源：《彭博商业周刊》
刊登日期：2021年3月5日
Rachel Ramos, who sells graphic T-shirts on Etsy from her home, was considering closing her shop before she saw business unexpectedly boom last May. The shop brought her $25,000 from May through December, compared with $11,000 the entire previous year. She’s saving that money to buy a house for her and her two children. “This kept me from having to struggle as a single mother,” she says.
雷切尔·拉莫斯在Etsy上居家销售印有图案的t恤。去年5月，她的生意出人意料地火爆起来，在此之前，她正考虑关闭店铺。这家店从5月到12月给她带来了2.5万美元的收入，而前一年全年只有1.1万美元。她正在攒钱给自己和两个孩子买房子。她说:“这让我不必作为一个单身母亲苦苦挣扎。”
A less obvious, indirect recipient of her windfall: the states where her customers live, which can use taxes on her T-shirt sales to help plug the holes in their budgets.
她的意外之财还有一个不那么明显、间接的接受者：她的客户所在的州，这些州可以利用她t恤销售的税收来帮助他们填补预算上的缺口。
When much of the country went into quarantine last year, Americans holed up at home took to their laptops to buy just about everything online, from groceries to home goods to electronics. As they drove a surge in online retail, shoppers were also unknowingly helping to keep their state finances afloat—thanks to a 2018 Supreme Court decision in South Dakota v. Wayfair.
去年，当美国大部分地区处于隔离时，躲在家里的美国人拿着笔记本电脑在网上购买几乎所有的东西，从杂货到家居用品再到电子产品。随着在线零售的激增，购物者也在不知不觉中帮助维持了他们所在州的财务状况——这要归功于2018年最高法院在南达科他州诉Wayfair案中的裁决。
South Dakota passed a law in 2016 requiring online retailers with no physical presence in the state to collect sales taxes. The court decided 5 to 4 in South Dakota’s favor, allowing states across the country to start reaping billions of dollars in taxes from purchases made from internet retailers. As states crafted laws allowing them to tax online retailers, they also extended the levies to virtual marketplaces such as eBay and Etsy.
南达科他州在2016年通过了一项法律，要求在该州没有实体店的在线零售商缴纳销售税。最高法院以5票赞成、4票反对的结果支持南达科他州，从而允许全美各州从网络零售商的交易中获得数十亿美元的税收。随着各州制定法律允许对在线零售商征税，他们也将征税范围扩大到eBay和Etsy等虚拟市场。
The effect has been “huge” for many state governments, which have seen other sources of revenue plummet, says Natalie Cohen, president of a consulting firm. “The two events together—the Wayfair decision and the pandemic—have just exploded online sales revenues.”
某咨询公司的总裁娜塔莉·科恩说，这对许多州政府产生了“巨大”的影响，它们已经看到了其他收入来源的急剧下降。“这两件事——Wayfair案的判决和新冠大流行——一起使得网上销售收入激增。”
Most state governments don’t separate online sales taxes from other sales taxes in their accounting, so it’s hard to calculate the impact nationwide. But in California, online taxable sales more than tripled in the first half of 2020 compared with a year earlier. In New York, “a dramatic shift in consumer spending” led to a significant increase in online purchases, which bolstered tax collections, according to a report in February. North Carolina’s sales tax collections are expected to jump more than 10% from the previous year.
大多数州政府在会计核算中并没有将网上销售税与其他销售税分开，所以很难计算其在全美范围内的影响。但在加州，2020年上半年网上应税销售额是去年同期的三倍多。根据二月份的一份报告，在纽约州，“消费者支出的巨大转变”导致了网上购物的显著增加，从而改善了税收情况。北卡罗来纳州的销售税预计将比前一年上涨10%以上。
Eric Kim, head of the U.S. state rating team at Fitch Ratings, says that the Wayfair decision “could not have come at a better time” for states and local governments. Although taxes from online sales have mitigated their fiscal damage, sales taxes generally were still slightly down between March and December, according to the Urban Institute.
惠誉评级美国州评级团队负责人埃里克•金表示，对州和地方政府来说，Wayfair案的判决“来得正是时候”。城市研究所表示，尽管网上销售税减轻了各州的财政损失，但3月至12月间，销售税总体上仍略有下降。