By AP/KWMU
Jefferson City, MO – The Missouri Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the state's use tax law.
The law lets local governments tax mail-order purchases at the same rate levied in local retail stores; the ruling caps years of legal battles.
Those battles started in 1994, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Missouri's use tax at that time discriminated against interstate commerce because the use tax was higher than some local sales taxes.
So, state lawmakers responded with a new law letting cities and towns charge a tax equal to the local sales tax. But that new law was challenged by Kirkwood Glass Company on grounds it still violated the interstate commerce clause of the U.S. constitution.
The state Supreme Court rejected that argument Tuesday.