As with any business, Amazon won't pay the tax....The consumer will with increased costs from Amazon.

Why does anyone even bother with taxes? Seems that everything and anything has run through governments greedy hands so it can get it's hands on something to feel it up first. That just seems like the same old mafia racket that the net has started to break and now back from the past comes the throwbacks that claim they are making change to our world by running taxes up the internet flagpole.

Seems lately NY has had a litany of anti-technology and anti-freedom campaigns designed to take as much as possible from as many as possible. Why don't they just secede and join England since they seem to lust after being just like the socialists in England and leave the rest of us the hell alone.

First it was protecting the children from porn in newsgroups and now we have taxes for online business, it seems like they have a case of tyrannyitis and need to be put in the isolation box til they get over the illness, lest they infect the rest of us with their sickness. Maybe people should boycott business in NY for their governments overreach.

These taxes just go to pay for bigger police forces with bigger problems that they create through legislation for us to be vaccumed dry like the petty theives they appear as, yet claim a moral high ground and use morality and guilt trips to socially construct a police state. Please leave the union and join China or wait they are becoming more capitalist than your state ok, maybe your state would enjoy the company of North Korea as a model for you to emulate. Live free or die!

[edit on 14-1-2009 by bubbabuddha]

PA, where I live, has always had something called a "use tax" whereby any item you buy outside the state but consume within the state should have the tax sent to the capital (Harrisburg) montly by you.

Example - I drive to DE and buy a big-screen tv. I owe PA the 6% sales tax on that item (no sales tax in DE).

I buy a box of bolts online from eBay for $100 and pay $20 shipping. I owe 6% on (yes) - $120. They want tax on the shipping as well. I'd bet that 90% of citizens of PA somehow were "illegal" in this area over the last few years. I've bought a few hundred items on eBay - only paid sales tax on a few where the seller was in PA. Otherwise, I guess I owe $hundreds in Use Tax in the end. I just love that they want to tax your shipping cost.

Most states may have this already. It's a matter of impossible tracing of these from hundreds of thousands of online sellers. The only way to enforce it today is with a huge influx of auditors and other stuff.

eBay was fighting this - saying they'd implement state tax collection if every other internet seller did the same. Since there is no federal law to do this, it's up to the 45 states with sales tax to work the system to figure this out.

The point is the state-of-consumption is who wants to tax you. It's not the state that made the sale.