“The hope would be that DOR would pass a regulation or pass some requirement to make online retailers update to geolocation software,” Flynn said.

Calhoun County Administrator Ted Felder stated that the county has five areas with zip codes associated with other countries.

“As a result of that, you could be missing out on some collections of both your capital projects and your local option sales tax,” Flynn stated.

Flynn said there is no direct way to quantify how much the country has lost. He believes the problem will only become worse as the number of online retailers increases.

County officials are hoping that a letter will notify DOR that the issue has a direct effect on its tax collections.

“The hope is the director of DOR would take this and appreciate the fact that in a small county, every dollar that could otherwise be generated and raised is beneficial, and it largely is going to affect the smaller counties,” Flynn said.

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