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Those companies already exist.

They shouldn't be?
http://lifehacker.com/reminder-gift-cards-are-tax-free-so-make-sure-you-don-1668494857
https://trustfile.avalara.com/blog/should-i-tax-customers-for-gift-cards/
https://www.accuratetax.com/blog/sales-tax-gift-certificates/

Does this really surprise anyone since it's coming from the state with a compressed air tax?

Have any of you attempted to build a professional shopping cart and tried to get accurate sales tax working for states like California, Texas, and New York?

It's amazing how costly it can be because there's no easy way to map zip codes or any other easily looked up value to a tax rate. Zip codes can cross county lines and if a mall is built on a county line, there could be different sales tax rates within the same building. And yet, the states are no help in helping online stores to easily comply with the varying sales tax rates, even though they stand to make more money if people can more easily comply.

Even Paypal, Amazon Payments, Google, and other payment providers will not calculate sales tax for you, likely because it's so easy to get it wrong- The liability of miscalculating sales tax must be huge- Amazon has the money to fight the state tax offices but not a mom and pop online store.

There are several companies that exist solely to help shopping cart builders comply with the sales tax burdens of the different states, but the fees for using paid APIs can be high. One of these companies has map illustrating the problem.

Believe it or not, there are indeed companies that do just this.

And http://www.avalara.com/ uses a web services model [though the stability leaves a little to be desired]

That whole argument is a bunch of bull. Two minutes with Google found these:

Avalara
CyberSource
CCH Group


Just as my mortgage holder doesn't calculate or pay my real estate taxes (they outsource it to a specialized third party), retailers don't need to calculate my sales tax. The "it's too hard and confusing" argument is just a weak attempt to justify keeping a competitive advantages. Walmart, Target, Sears, Home Depot, Toys 'R' Us, et al operate in all 50 states (or nearly so) and they're all capable of collecting sales tax on their internet transactions. If they can do it, Amazon can do it.

The point is that my state (RI) has a law that says if I live here and I buy something I owe sales/use tax on it, no matter where I buy it from. Since enforcement against taxpayers is nearly impossible, going after the big retailers makes sense. Even if I don't much like it.