California v Amazon

[Trajan]

so to sum up; a) Texas was right,

Which State Will Get Lower Taxes To Get Amazon And Caterpillar Business? - 24/7 Wall St.

Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) is so upset by the prospect that it must collect state sales taxes on items it sells that it will desert its operations in Dallas because Texas sent it a bill for $269 million. Amazon has threatened to do the same in California. Other states will follow if they are not willing to agree with the e-commerce company’s view that it is not a tax collection agency.

Amazon’s business and that of heavy earth machine equipment maker Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT) could not be more dissimilar. But, Caterpillar has threatened to pull business, and lay-off workers in Illinois if the state does not roll back new taxes

and?

 

[Provocateur]

ETA: I agree with FA_Q2 in that this is a national problem, and can really only be realistically handled at the federal level.

As a conservative, I hate being overtaxed, but this is certainly a loop hole for online businesses that should be closed. Sometimes it takes a while for laws to catch up, and most people have enjoyed this freebie for quite a while. It sucks when we lose the goodies, but the fact that the online vendors have a competitive edge seems like something that should be addressed.