eBay encourages sellers to oppose Senate’s pending online sales tax bill

[bemildred]

6. Well, this is awkward. The last thing I really want to do is defend the sales tax.

However, I do want Amazon to collect and pay the sales tax for any state it sells into, since otherwise that leaves them with an advantage over Mom & Pop, who will have to collect it, anyway, already, if they want to be legal, in their state, unless the state has no sales tax.

I quite agree that it should be for the states to argue about how to divide the proceeds up, not Mom & Pop. If Mom & Pop sell in state X and collect state X tax while doing so, they should be done. California already goes after consumers on their state tax returns, for internet purchases, but it's voluntary (i.e. not enforced).

On the other hand, if state X has no sales tax, and Mom and Pop want to sell in California, which does, then they should collect CA tax like CA businesses have to. So basically don't sell here if it's too much trouble.