Multistate Tax Commission

P.L. 86-272 Statement of Information Project

This project was approved by the Executive Committee at its meeting on July 31, 2014. The Uniformity Committee subsequently met to discuss the project and consider the scope as well as the make-up of a working group.

Project Description

The Uniformity Committee at its meeting in November 2018 agreed to form a work group to update the MTC’s “Statement of Information Concerning Practices of Multistate Tax Commission and Signatory States under Public Law 86-272.” The statement was last updated in 2001. The work group will propose revisions to the Statement to address changes that have occurred during the past two decades in the economy and the way that business is conducted.

Revisions to P.L. 86-272 Statement of Information as Approved by the Commission and the MTC Executive Committee

Final Version of the Revisions to the Statement on P.L. 86-272

This version of the revised MTC Statement of Information on P.L. 86-272, with minor corrections approved by the Hearing Officer, was approved by the Executive Committee at its meeting on November 20, 2020. This version was also adopted for recommendation to the states by the Commission at its annual meeting on August 4, 2021. Additional information on the revisions and on the project to draft those revisions is provided below.

P.L. 86-272 Statement of Information Work Group

The P.L. 86-272 Work Group has completed its review of the current MTC Statement of Information and submitted a revised version to the Uniformity Committee for its consideration:

Public Hearing

The Uniformity Committee recommended the proposed revision to the P.L. 86-272 Statement of Information to the Executive Committee, which asked the commission to hold a public hearing. That hearing was held August 5, 2020, 2:00 P.M. ET, with Robert J. Desiderio, Professor Emeritus, University of New Mexico School of Law, as the Hearing Officer.

The Hearing Officer's Report is available here: Hearing Officer Report

Source Materials

Public Law 86-272, 15 U.S.C. §§381-84
Statement of Information Concerning Practices of Multistate Tax Commission and Signatory States Under Public Law 86-272, Third Revision adopted on July 27, 2001

Hearing Materials

Memorandum from Commission staff submitting Work Group proposal to hearing officer
Public Comments - Oregon Department of Revenue
Public Comments - Darien Shanske
Public Comments - Philip M. Tatarowicz
Public Comments - Bernard D. Copping
Public Comments - COST
Public Comments - Massachusetts Department of Revenue

Reference Materials

Legislative history and court decisions

Northwestern States Portland Cement Co. v. Minnesota
Senate Report No. 658, 86th Cong. 1st Sess.
Conference Report No. 1103, 86th Cong, 1st Sess.
House Report No. 936, 86th Cong, 1st Sess.
Willis Commission report (vol.1, including chapter 13 Impact of Public Law 86-272) (external link)
Wisconsin Dep’t of Revenue v. William Wrigley, Jr. Co.
South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc.

Court decisions addressing federal preemption

Materials describing internet “cookies”

“How to Use Cookies to Better Understand Your Customers Needs,” Nov. 8, 2011 (link to external site).
“How cookies track you around the web and how to stop them,” Feb. 24, 2018, (link to external site).
David Goldman, “I Always feel Like Someone is Watching Me: A Technological Solution for Online Privacy, 28 Hastings Commercial and Entertainment Law Journal 353" (2006). This article provides an explanation of cookies and their purpose. See particularly pages 364-67.
Federal Trade Commission description of cookies.
Eoin Carolan & M. Rosario Castillo-Mayen, “Why More User Control Does Not Mean More User Privacy: An empirical (and Counter-Intuitive) Assessment of European E-Privacy Laws,” 19 Virginia Journal of Law & Technology 329 (2015). See particularly page 4.
In Re: Nickelodeon Consumer Privacy Litigation, 827 F.3d 262 (3^rd Cir. 2016). See particularly page 268; note that these are factual allegations accepted as true by the court for purposes of a motion to dismiss.
Mount v. PulsePoint, Inc., 2016 WL 5080131 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 17, 2016). See particularly Section 1 of the opinion.

Materials describing the transmittal of code to a customer’s computer

Soltani Expert Report (filed in the Ohio Crutchfield litigation) . “When a user visits a website . . ., the website transmits code and images to the user’s computer via the user’s current internet connection. Often the code and images are stored on the user’s hard drive in order to improve the website performance. . . . This stored content is referred to as the browser cache.” This Report is attached to this email—see discussion beginning on page 20.
MakeUseOf website: “The browser cache is a temporary storage location on your computer for files downloaded by your browser to display websites. Files that are cached locally include any documents that make up a website, such as html files, CSS style sheets, JavaScript scripts, as well as graphic images and other multimedia content. When you revisit a website, the browser checks which content was updated in the meantime and only downloads updated files or what is not already stored in the cache. This reduces bandwidth usage on both the user and server side and allows the page to load faster. Hence, the cache is especially useful when you have a slow or limited Internet connection.”
Pressidium blog. “How does the browser cache work.” “The cache is a software or hardware component that is used to temporarily store values for faster future access. The browser cache is a small database of files that contains downloaded web page resources, such as images, videos, CSS, Javascript, and so on . . . . The browser requests some content from the web server. If the content is not in the browser cache then it is retrieved directly from the web server. If the content was previously cached, the browser bypasses the server and loads the content directly from its cache.”
Here is an explanation of JavaScript, which is a bit technical. (MakeUseOf)

Materials relating to foreign commerce discussion