Organized in March 2000, the Streamlined Sales Tax Project (SSTP) objective is to simplify and modernize sales and use tax collection and administration in the United States. It arose in response to efforts by Congress to permanently prohibit states from collecting sales taxes on online commerce. Because such a ban would have serious financial consequences for states, the SSTP began as an effort to try to minimize the many differences between the sales tax policies and practices of states.
In prior decisions regarding mail order sales, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1992 (in the case of Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, 504 U.S. 298) that mail-order retailers were not compelled to collect use tax and remit the tax to states, in part because of the complexities of doing so. With computers, however, the difficulties of doing so are much smaller today, so the remaining stumbling block lies in the variations among state sales taxes. Organizers of the SSTP hope that by ironing out differences among state taxation levels, they will remove a major roadblock to the collection of taxes on online sales and convince Congress and the courts to allow them to collect these taxes regularly.