Clawing Sales-Tax Revenue Out of Amazon

摘要

California visitors to Wal-Mart Stores's website must pay $214 to buy a Philips Electronics 22-inch LCD HDTV, one of the hottest-selling flat-panel televisions on the Web. Customers of Amazon.com in that state see a price of $194 for the same product. The discrepancy stems largely from something that dates back to Julius Caesar: sales tax. Wal-Mart, with about 100 stores in California, has to collect it. Amazon, with no stores in California-or anywhere else, for that matter-does not.