The states are hurting for money and that means most of them are now trying to collect internet sales tax. Alas, their efforts are crashing and burning something fierce. 

By now, you probably know the argument being made by states. Internet sites have an advantage over local businesses because they don’t have to collect sales tax. This is a weak argument when you consider the fact that brick and mortar stores don’t have to charge for shipping, but what does logic have to do with the greedy hands of any politician? Not a thing!

The states have been trying to collect sales tax from online retailers like Amazon only to be shot down because of Supreme Court catalog rulings. Given this, they’ve tried a number of new creative solutions. North Carolina and Colorado were thought to have come up with an interesting one wherein they forced large companies to tell them the identity of all the customers from their state making purchases, what they purchased and for how much. The states would then bill their citizens for the sales tax, know in this case as a “use tax.” 

Talk about Big Brother run amok. Fortunately, legal challenges were made left and right to these new laws and the courts are hammering the state politicians and citing them as what they are – idiots! The states completely forgot to consider the privacy element of what they are doing. Neither the federal government nor state governments have any right to look at what you read or buy. It’s a First Amendment issue, one that has been long settled. 

Okay, so what now? Will the states come up with some new approach? Oh, you can be they’ll keep having a go at it. Their efforts are a waste of time. If there is going to be an internet sales tax, it is something that needs to be nationwide so that businesses are not give a crushing burden when trying to pay it. If it is done at the local level, an online business would have to file and pay taxes in upwards of 5,000 localities. 

That’s madness.