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A possible step toward collecting sales tax for online purchases was put on hold Thursday amid opposition from a Who's Who of national conservative groups.

Sen. Wayne Harper, R-Taylorsville, canceled a scheduled hearing for his SB65, telling the Senate Revenue and Taxation committee that it has been "grossly misrepresented" by others, and he was working with supporters and others to explain what it would do.

That came a day after a coalition of 21 groups — including Americans for Prosperity, Americans for Tax Reform, FreedomWorks and the National Taxpayers Union — wrote to legislators opposing SB65 and other moves to collect online sales tax.

They called Harper's bill "constitutionally suspect and practically unwise." They added, "We oppose efforts to impose tax collection and reporting requirements on businesses without a physical presence in the state."

Utahns by law already are supposed to pay sales tax on any online purchases they make by voluntarily adding it to their state income tax returns. Few do. Sen. Curt Bramble, R-Provo, recently said a relative handful of honest Utahns paid about $200,000 total last year out of the estimated $80 million to $350 million owed.

Currently, merchants selling products online have to collect sales tax only if they have a physical location — such as a store or warehouse — within the state where the purchase is made.

Harper said his bill would require online-sales platforms such as Amazon or eBay to provide a list quarterly to the Utah Tax Commission of all firms and individuals using their services that made at least $2,500 in online sales to people living in Utah.

The bill then would require the tax commission to send letters to those sellers reminding them of Utahns' obligations to pay tax on those sales, and urging them to notify buyers in Utah of that obligation.

But the coalition of conservative groups wrote that it "is a nuisance reporting requirement in order to give Utah tax collectors information that they'd then use to collect use tax, and would create a host of economic, logistic, and constitutional problems" caused by asserting tax authority on out-of-state businesses.

Harper said other states have passed similar bills, and court cases have held some to be unconstitutional but upheld other similar laws.