[zabuni]

There has always been. It hinges on the whether the business has a nexus by storing product in an Amazon warehouse. The problem is:

a) States really really hate that part of the Constitution, and verdict in Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, which led to the inability of states to collect tax across state lines. Up to the point of passings laws that directly contradict that Supreme Court verdict. So you're going to get sued, it's just a matter of how long it takes to make its way through the courts. b) They piss off enough states, the state governments complain to their Senators and Representatives, and suddenly we have an arm of the IRS federally given the power to collect state sales tax. Which means the IRS gets to know everything you bought online.

Amazon agreed to collect taxes to mollify the states, so they wouldn't start the above two options. It's a giant company, so it can take the hit of compliance. It also puts them at a competitive advantage over smaller retailers. Their margin is Amazon's opportunity after all!

If they get forced, I suspect Amazon might even get into the business of determining sales tax required for third parties, on that county by county basis. Make it an API, price it by the lookup, more business for them. Call it Compliance as a Service (CaaS).

[ghaff]

And presumably work out some deal where they can transparently remit the sales tax on behalf of the sellers. That's probably the bigger deal than determining the amount which I imagine Amazon could do pretty easily.

In terms of what they sell themselves, they were well on their way to having a presence in every state anyway between warehouses, Amazon locker, etc. So they pretty much rolled on something that was going to be a moot point in a few years anyway.