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Old 06-30-2011, 06:57 PM   #7
Alex
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Join Date: Feb 2005
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Part of it is

a) It isn't just 50 states (minus the ones without sales taxes) but much more local than that (as evidenced by sales tax being different depending on which side of the Walt Disney Resort you're on.

b) Having to maintain the information to allow audit by whatever number of taxing authorities that would be.

Obviously they could do this if they had to, but they don't want to. Plus consumers, for the most part, don't want them to have to do it either. It is hard for me to imagine a huge groundswell for the feds to figure out how to make us have to pay sales taxes that we're currently quite content avoiding (see, for example, the indignant outrage in Vancouver, Washington, any time there is something that cracks down even a little bit on people not paying taxes on large purchases in Portland).

But Amazon has said that if there is a policy, it should be a federal one so they just have to deal with it once.
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