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Why Amazon Fights State Sales Tax, But Supports It Nationally
cagraham writes "The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that Amazon will begin charging customers in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Wisconsin sales tax today, after fighting against it for years. Amazon now charges sales tax in 16 states, affecting roughly 163 million Americans. Yet despite Amazon's continued fight against sales tax on the state-level, they support a Senate bill that would allow all states to tax online retailers. It seems like a contradiction, but it's actually a calculated move to undercut rivals like eBay (who would have a far harder time dealing with sales tax laws), and even an unequal playing field (many states that tax Amazon don't tax other online retailers)."
Amazon fights local sales tax because they don't like the notion that any municipality with 3 pigs and a mayor can impose their own laws on Amazon despite Amazon having no physical presence there. If you were running a website, would you want to care about every law that some nut job five states over dreams up?
Of course Amazon did this to hurt it's competition.
Of course, but that doesn't make them wrong. Taxes should be fair. If I buy something, the tax on it shouldn't depend on who I bought it from, or where they are located. Capitalism works best when companies compete to deliver value to their customers, rather than competing to avoid taxes.