Would you look at those morons... I paid my taxes over a year ago!

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2011/04/17/theres_no_fairness_in_taxing_e_sales/

This story kind of buries the lead, but manages to get to it at the end. I can sympathize with the thought of retailers who say how can we compete with amazon, etc. They don't even have to pay sales taxes, of course people will buy their products. But that skips over the crucial question of what is the point of taxes. To the politicians taxes are just a way to raise money to increase their own power. The more money at their disposal the more power they have. Well obviously from that point of view anyplace that they fail to collect money from is a failure. But if we stop to think logically for a second, the purpose of taxes is to pay to run society, to pay police officers to make sure there are no robereries at a store's location, to pay to pave the roads so customers can come to your store, to pay for fireman, and snow plowers in the winter, etc. An online business doesn't require any of those things. They don't get anything at all from the states that they don't operate in. And as such why should they pay for anything the state does. They have a home state in which they require police protection and the various benefits the state governments provide, and so they should pay taxes for that, but in other states there simply is no reasonable explanation for why they should pay taxes, except somebody doesn't think it's fair. Well life isn't fair, and anyone who tries to tell you differently is selling something. Of course ultimately states have it in their own power, if they don't like the results of the sales tax, switch to an income tax. That sets all business equal.