Slate: Amazon's Tax Stance Unfair and Unethical

theodp writes "We've talked before about Amazon's reluctance to collect sales tax, with Jeff Bezos going so far as to say it's unconstitutional. So it's not too surprising to see Amazon support a California referendum to repeal sales tax for online retailers. Slate's Farhad Manjoo loves buying from Amazon and would hate to pay higher prices, but says the e-tailer 'has no intellectually sound arguments against collecting taxes from residents — by all ethical and civic standards, its position is unsound.'"

Comments

A question for slashdot

[Okian Warrior]

One thing I've always wondered is why California needs so much money to operate.

Here in NH, we've got no sales tax and no income tax. Our overall tax burden is among the lowest in the US (sometimes *the* lowest, depending on the year), so yeah - our property taxes are high but not high enough to make up the difference.

Despite this dearth of income, we manage to keep the roads plowed, the schools funded, and the streetlights burning.

So what part of the economic model is different for California? Do they have more road per person to maintain? Are there more criminals per person so that they need more jails? Do they have social services we're missing (universal healthcare)?

Are coastlines more expensive than inland borders?

There's a lot of economists (student and hobby) here on Slashdot. I just don't see the difference in models.

What am I missing?