Florida publication cites CU concerns with exempting interchange fees from sales tax

Florida Politics highlighted credit union pushback against certain state-level interchange bills in a recent article, citing recent research showing the drawbacks of exempting interchange fees from tax calculations. Florida state legislators proposed such a bill during the 2023 legislative session, which ultimately did not move forward. 

"The research within the study found that 'to ensure that the sales tax information is accurate, payment providers would require validation from merchants and possibly state revenue departments for accuracy,' adding that 'to achieve this level of validation, merchants would be required to transmit sales data at the line-item level to support certain solutions,'" the article reads. "Simply put, that means transaction fees would be based on looking at every single individual purchase, rather than the current 'batch system,' which expedites payments and keeps purchases confidential for the consumer. It would require new software that is an out-of-reach expense for some small businesses."

The study found removing sales tax from interchange calculations would:

• Introduce complexity, cost and risk to a global, interoperable payment system.
• Create significant operational burden to merchants with small businesses seeing little to no benefit.
• Require a system of accountability to ensure that the sales tax charged on every card transaction is accurate.