Supreme Court Overrules Quill

Post by
June 21, 2018

The Supreme Court this morning decided South Dakota v. Wayfair and overruled the longstanding “physical-presence rule” for sales tax collection by out-of-state sellers.  See our previous coverage here.  The vote was 5-4.  The dissenters (Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, and Breyer) agreed that the cases establishing the rule were wrongly decided, but took the position that the Court should allow Congress to change the rule.  At oral argument, Justice Alito had indicated that he might share that view, but in the end he voted with the Justices that wanted to put an immediate end to the physical-presence rule.

More analysis of the decision at a future date.

Wayfair – Supreme Court opinion