WASHINGTON — As part of the ongoing campaign against credit and debit card interchange, the National Retail Federation has attacked including sales taxes as part of the total charge upon which interchange is calculated.

“When Visa and MasterCard take their cut, they don't take it on just the retail sale, they take it on the entire transaction including the sales tax. That's not their money,” NRF Senior Vice President and General Counsel Mallory Duncan at the National Conference of State Legislatures' Spring Conference in Washington. “The sales tax is the people's money, and they shouldn't be trying to take a piece of it. That drives up prices even higher, and everybody ends up paying a tax on a tax.”

The NRF said nine states have introduced at least 15 bills on interchange this year, including measures to ban interchange fees on the sales tax portion of transactions in Florida, Kansas, Nevada, New York and Washington. Kentucky, Nebraska and Texas have introduced bills requiring credit card companies to be more transparent in disclosing rules and fees. A bill in Tennessee would cap interchange rates at 0.75%. Some states have multiple bills pending addressing various aspects of interchange.