The House Revenue & Taxation Committee has killed HB 658, the streamlined sales tax bill, on a tied, 9-9 vote. Rep. JoAn Wood, R-Rigby, who provided the tie-breaking vote to introduce the bill, switched this time, and voted against a motion from Rep. Dell Raybould, R-Rexburg, to send the bill to the full House without a recommendation. The bipartisan measure, cosponsored by Reps. Leon Smith, R-Twin Falls, and Bill Killen, D-Boise, was identical - but for the title - to legislation that earlier passed the Senate unanimously. It would allow Idaho to join a multistate coalition working toward streamlining definitions in sales tax laws to allow eventual collection of sales taxes on online sales.

House Minority Leader John Rusche, D-Lewiston, left the meeting in disgust after the vote. "I'm very disappointed, very disappointed," he said. "It's too threatening even to talk about, huh? Bringing us up to the 21st century? It's going to be an ongoing problem." Businesses across the state backed the bill as a move toward eventually removing a 6 percent advantage now held by out-of-state online merchants who can undercut local ones because they don't have to charge the Idaho sales tax.

Rep. Dennis Lake, R-Blackfoot, the committee chairman, said, "It's that same mindset that we have in that committee - I don't know how we overcome it. They think the federal government has to act first, no sense in us acting 'til they do something." He added, "Oh, I suppose we'll see it again next year."

House Majority Leader Mike Moyle, R-Star, was a vehement opponent of the bill for that reason; also strongly opposing it was Rep. Jim Clark, R-Hayden Lake. Interestingly, Clark was the lead sponsor of HB 391a, the "Idaho Health Freedom Act," which Gov. Butch Otter signed into law yesterday, and which is based on the opposite approach - that Idaho should act, in that case to prevent imposition of certain health care reforms, even if it means a court fight - before Congress takes action on them.