Amazon Warfare

摘要

With state budgets a mess, a court ruling in January in New York was the perfect excuse for politicians nationwide to pounce. The ruling, by a state trial court, upheld New York's year-old law forcing Amazon to collect sales taxes on mail orders delivered to New York. Legislators in six states are pushing bills copying New York's. Others seized on the ruling as a reason Congress should force Internet retailers to collect sales tax for all states. All this even though Amazon is appealing.rnBattles over state taxers' cross-border reach are as old as the Constitution's Commerce Clause, which leaves it to Congress to regulate interstate business. But states are using new guerrilla tactics as multistate companies concoct fresh ways to dodge levies and Internet retailing grabs potential tax revenues. The Supreme Court ruled long ago that a seller doesn't have to collect sales taxes forrna state unless it has a physical presence in that state. (The buyer of the goods, in most states, still owes the tax-but that tax is collected on the honor system.) New York's new lawrnattempts to finesse that ruling by attributing the in-state presence of Amazon's New York affiliate sellers to Amazon.