In October 1998, Congress enacted the Internet Tax Freedom Act (ITFA), a temporary three-year “moratorium” on the enactment of new state and local “taxes on Internet access” and on “multiple or discriminatory taxes on electronic commerce.” After extending the act temporarily several times, Congress, in 2016, finally and controversially struck the language temporarily extending the act, thereby making it permanent.

With its idiosyncratic legislative history and statutory language, as well as the recent attention it has received in connection with legal challenges to digital services and analogous taxes, we thought it would be appropriate to commemorate ITFA’s 25th birthday by reviewing the act and the litigation it has spawned and to consider whether it is “fit for service” in today’s digital economy.

The binary legislative choice between state and federal regulation of a firm’s internal affairs is deeply entrenched in the existing literature and policy discussions. Alas, this regulatory menu contains a false and distortive dichotomy. The state-federal dichotomy is false because multistate formation and regulation of business entities are possible as well. This dichotomy is distortive because it deprives policymakers of the advantages of multistate corporations and other business entities. In this Article, we demonstrate that a multistate business entities regime can resolve multiple predicaments that presently bring about unfairness and inefficiencies in both business entities law and business entities taxation.

A multistate business entity regime promises to be beneficial for both the participating states and the business entities themselves. For example, by choosing to co-compete, states that have so far lost in the market for corporate charters would be able to generate—and divide among themselves—substantial business and tax revenues by offering the corporations formed under their regime unique tax and corporate law benefits. In this way, for example, a “tri-state” co-op, offered by New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey, could compete with Delaware; and a “rust belt” coalition could retain industry charters within its multistate jurisdiction.

The hitherto unnoticed potential for a multistate entity regime aligns with the Framers’ vision for state cooperation under the Constitution’s Compact Clause. Further yet, setting up this regime would vastly improve the functioning of the market for both corporate charters and other business entities. This regime would allow states to vigorously compete for both managers and investors, boost stakeholder advocacy, and accomplish ESG goals to the benefit of their constituents.

While the Supreme Court regularly decides cases defining the limits of the criminal jurisdiction of tribal courts, when it heard United States v. Cooley in 2021 it had not decided a case about the procedural powers of tribal law enforcement in more than a century. Across more than five decades lower courts at all levels struggled to decide whether the inherent criminal powers of tribal law enforcement are coterminous with the jurisdiction of tribal courts or whether tribal officers may have their own set of inherent powers distinct from the power to prosecute. This Article examines the inconsistent split in authority that existed before Cooley and anticipates the future misreading of inherent criminal power by lower courts. It argues that now that the Court has divorced the inherent criminal power of tribal law enforcement from the criminal jurisdictional power of tribal courts, tribal officers may stop, detain, search, and investigate anyone whose criminal conduct poses a danger to the health and welfare of the tribal community. The Article bolsters its application by using the first cases decided by lower courts in the post-Cooley era as artifacts to examine the full implications of the recognition of inherent criminal power exercised by tribal law enforcement.