Retailer Gets Outside Backing in Massachusetts Wayfair Fight

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court shouldn’t apply a landmark US Supreme Court sales tax case retroactively to “sanitize the commissioner’s prior unconstitutional conduct” toward an out-of-state merchant, a free-enterprise advocacy group told the state court.

The New England Legal Foundation amicus brief supports U.S. Auto Parts Network Inc.'s argument that it shouldn’t owe sales tax for the month of October 2017, nine months before the Supreme Court in South Dakota v. Wayfair allowed states to impose tax collection obligations on remote sellers based on economic activity in a state rather than physical presence.

The group’s Thursday filing responded ...