California lawmakers overwhelmingly approved a compromise bill Friday night giving Amazon.com a one-year reprieve from having to collect a sales tax from its customers in the state. Under the new measure, Amazon agreed to start collecting the tax in September 2012 unless there was federal legislation on the issue.
So what should online resellers do after September 15 2012? What’s next for other states? Online sellers face mounting pressure across the country to collect sales taxes across the country.
I am not against collecting sales tax; however I am against collecting sales tax on behalf of 50 states. Small businesses are not tax collectors. Can online sellers just collect a flat rate federal sales tax?
During downturn, all businesses compete on keeping their costs of doing business as low as possible while expending their time and energy on revenue generating activities. I believe being forced to track each purchase by zip code will create unnecessary costs and price increases that will hurt everyone.