By Brad Scott, ACMA Tax Committee Chairman
As the Chairman of the ACMA Tax Committee, I need to express my sincere gratitude to everyone who signed our letter to bipartisan Congressional Leadership last week. Nearly 70 companies from more than half of the 50 states signed the letter.
The letter highlights the struggles that businesses continue to face post-Wayfair. It also reinforces witness testimony delivered during the September 25h bipartisan Senate Finance Committee hearing. We are calling on Congress to include relief to remote sellers in their continued negotiations on a broad-based tax reform package expected to be acted on in 2025.
Enormous Potential Impact
The impact of this letter on Congressional Leadership and the Senate Finance Committee cannot be understated. Since the Wayfair decision, the ACMA Tax Committee and our broader membership has relentlessly educated Congressional Members about the challenges of compliance with the laws, rules and regulations of the approximately 12,000 taxing jurisdictions throughout the country. We continue to work with bipartisan Members of Congress to draft legislation that will make compliance simpler and more cost efficient.
Littleton Coin’s John Hennessey with Sen. Maggie Hassan
As you may recall, ACMA member John Hennessey, CEO of Littleton Coin Co. of Littleton, NH, testified in front of the Senate Finance Committee in 2022 during a hearing on the impact of the Wayfair decision on small business remote sellers. That hearing was incredibly helpful in highlighting the exact pain, struggle, and costs that compliant businesses experience.
Since then, we have had dozens of meetings on Capitol Hill discussing legislative remedies and pushing for Congress to act on this important issue. We have found partners in other organizations such as the National Taxpayers Union Foundation and the National Federation of Independent Businesses.
Outcome Imminent?
Getting legislation introduced is a long and slow process. Last week’s hearing provided a timely reminder to Congress that its work is not complete. The ACMA, its members, the Vogel Group’s Steve Borg, and our partner organizations will continue to work with Congress toward a better remote sales tax environment. We appreciate your collaboration in this endeavor.
If you have not yet engaged on this issue or would like to learn more about our efforts, please feel free to reach out to me or Paul Miller at ACMA. We would be happy to pass along background on the issue and our latest proposals in front of Congress. We are here fighting for you, but the more members we have raising our voice, the stronger and broader our message becomes.
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About the Author
Brad Scott (right) has served as ACMA’s tax committee chairman since 2020. He has.been with Halstead Bead, an e-commerce jewelry wholesaler, for more than two decades. He handles multi-state sales and income tax registrations, filings, reconciliations, and all other accounting for the business, leading its legislative advocacy efforts to achieve multi-state sales tax policy uniformity & simplification.
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Lynn Noble is ACMA’s Vice President, Industry Relations, having joined the ACMA in May 2015, following an extensive direct marketing career in private industry as well as the US Postal Service. He is responsible for leading the membership development efforts for the ACMA through new member acquisitions and providing enhanced member value.
Throughout his career, Lynn has held key marketing & sales positions with several leading direct marketers, as well as several high-level management positions with the US Postal Service.
In 2009, at the request of the ACMA, the US Postal Service initiated a new position of Catalog Manager to lead the Service’s efforts to stabilize and grow the catalog industry. Lynn returned to the USPS to lead those efforts and was instrumental to developing a stronger industry partnership between the Postal Service and the catalog industry. Serving as the product manager for catalogs, Lynn helped to raise the awareness of catalog-specific business challenges within the executive ranks of the USPS. During his tenure, the ACMA and catalog companies enjoyed a collaborative and progressive environment that produced more stabilized rates and inclusion in key USPS promotional opportunities.
Just prior to joining the ACMA Lynn was the USPS’s Manager, Strategic Account Operations, leading a team of senior sales professionals who focused exclusively in the Catalog, Mail Order, and E-commerce arena. In addition to his Postal positions, Lynn previously held key positions with leading direct marketing companies, including Cox Target Media, Market Logic, Catalina Marketing, Freesamples.com, and Advantage Direct.
Named Vice President & Deputy Director in January 2010, Miller came to the ACMA following a lengthy career of more than two decades following the catalog/multichannel/e-commerce/retail businesses. Reporting to ACMA president & executive director Hamilton Davison, Miller oversees marketing and communications, membership development, and organizes and oversees ACMA’s National Catalog Forum, while working with Davison on most of ACMA’s postal-related efforts.
Miller started his career as a reporter with Catalog Showroom Business, following a form of retailing that was led by the likes of the Service Merchandise and Best Products retail chains.
After several years of editor/reporter roles with business magazines that followed the toy and gift industries, Miller was named associate editor of Catalog Age magazine (now Multichannel Merchant) in 1986. He rose up the ranks at Catalog Age over the next 18 years to be the magazine’s senior news editor.
Beginning in the late ’80s, Miller became Catalog Age’s postal beat reporter, where he’d follow key postal events and pull out the key catalog mail-related issues for readers. During that time, he attended many Mailers Technical Advisory Committee (MTAC) meetings and National Postal forums.
After leaving Catalog Age in 2004, Miller consulted with several catalogers and multichannel suppliers for a time, he was named news/website editor at Commercial Property News. Less than a year later, he was asked to take the reigns at Catalog Success (now All About ROI) where he served as editor-in- chief from 2006 till the end of 2009.
ACMA appointed Michael K. Plunkett as its President and Executive Director in January 2024, succeeding founder Hamilton Davison. Mr. Davison moved on to own and run a company. Mr. Plunkett brings years of executive leadership experience having been the President and CEO of the Association for Postal Commerce (PostCom) since 2017. In the newly-formed dual role, he will continue his current role with PostCom and the two organizations will operate separately.
During his tenure, PostCom has continued to lead the mailing and shipping industry on policy and regulatory matters and to work with Government agency partners to advance issues of importance to members. Mr. Plunkett is also President of the Delivery Technology Advocacy Council, a nonprofit launched in 2020 to concentrate on delivery and logistics technologies.
Prior to PostCom, Mr. Plunkett accumulated more than 25 years Postal experience with the United States Postal Service in numerous executive roles in operations, marketing, product development and pricing. As a leader within the Postal Service’s management team, Mr. Plunkett developed a well-earned reputation for innovation by leading efforts to develop pricing agreements for domestic services and in the development of the forever stamp and the priority mail flat rate box.
Mr. Plunkett has testified on pricing and policy issues before the Postal Regulatory Commission and Congressional subcommittees. He has authored and presented papers on postal policies, economics, and operations for National and International conferences.
Mr. Plunkett holds Masters Degrees in Business from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was a Sloan Fellow. He earned a Bachelor Degrees in Economics and Finance from the Pennsylvania State University.
