01 June 2008

It's BAAAAK - Cites now go after OTAs over Unpaid Taxes

This week on May 27th the city of San Antonio (its in Texas in case you are - like me - occasionally geographically challenged) won class action status for a Suit against 16 companies including the heavyweight online travel agencies such as Expedia, Orbitz, Priceline and Travelocity.

Not to be out done, on Thursday fellow Texas city Houston also filed a similar lawsuit that probably included a lot of cut and paste from San Antonio's suit.

So while the current State battle on the subject has been a set of battles that have been won and lost by both sides, this represents a new battle ground for all concerned.

Now that the tide has turned aay from tax free Internet Commerce as Cities and other tax authorities struggle with falling revenues, you can expect to see this fight run for quite some time.

Perhaps they can outsource the collection to India.

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