Three Issues For Legislators to Tackle: A Business Owner's Thoughts

(Editor's note: Hillary Feder is owner of . Hopkins Patch invited her to offer a business person's thoughts on what problems the Legislature should try to solve during this year's session. Although she's the current board chair for the Minnesota Retailers Association, the views below are her own, not the association's.)

E Fairness (sales tax for all retail online and brick and mortar): This legislation will level the playing field between remote-only and brick and mortar retailers. Currently retailers with a brick-and-mortar presence in the state collect and remit state and local sales tax due from consumers on their purchases. This loop hole enables consumers go into local stores for almost anything (electronics, furniture, gifts, etc) and work with a sales person in that business get lots of information and help. Instead of making the purchase in that store (big box or small local store), consumers are often placing the order on the Internet with companies that do not have brick and mortar established presence in the state—the consumer can save on sales tax.

Pharmacy Benefit Managers: This legislation challenges the integrity of PBMs' audits of pharmacy transactions. Audits are reasonable to deter fraudulent claims. If the PBM finds an issue in a pharmacy's records, they have the authority to withhold the penalty from their next reimbursement payment. The issue is in financial penalties for technical or record-keeping errors that have no bearing on the validity of the claim.There are currently few if any checks and balances to the system and no ability for a pharmacy to appeal an error that an auditor found. This is a very complex issue that is really hurting smaller, especially the independent pharmacy. 

Credit and debit card transactions fees: When merchants accept a credit card or debit card to transfer the funds for the transaction/purchase, merchants are required to pay a fixed fee to the merchant processor. For true credit cards, the card company is providing the money until they are paid by the customer. In a debit card transaction, the money is immediately drawn from the card holders bank account AND the merchant is charged the same fee. Essentially debit cards are electronic forms of paper checks which, should clear at par. As a retailer, I do understand the necessity to pay some type of processing fee for debit cards. It should, however, be substantially lower than the fees we are charged for credit cards.