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To: Road Walker who wrote (103393)	5/14/2000 9:19:00 AM
From: willcousa	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

No. Sorry to mislead here. I am saying that sales tax is imposed on the buyer and that an out of state company which delivers its' product through the mails or equivalent has not been forced to collect sales tax for the home state of the buyer. This is so for any catalog seller unless that seller has a physical presence in the home state of the buyer. As a real-life example LLBean was once a store in Maine with a catalog business. Only Maine (LLBean's home state) was allowed to force LLBean to collect sales tax on its catalog sales to Maine residents. When LLBean opened stores in other states then those states could require LLBean, by virtue of its' physical presence in those states to collect sales tax from those states' residents on catalog sales. The basis for this result is the commerce clause of the Constitution. It is considered an unreasonable burden on a catalog seller to collect sales tax on behalf of a atate where the catalog retailer has no physical presence. This conclusion is further supported by the conclusion that a catalog seller with no physical presence in a state gets no benefit in return for a state's services (which taxes are levied to pay for). It has been argued that collecting taxes for varying jurisdictions is still not a great burden for a large catalog retailer like a Sears. But it is a great burden for someone who makes wax candles in their basement and sells them by catalog. My point is that the home state of the catalog retailer gets to tax all of the income generated by that retailer through interstate commerce regardless of the home state of the buyer and that is an offsetting benefit, IMHO. The states have enacted "use" taxes for the catalog sales situation where their citizens buy goods from out of state. The use tax is imposed on the buyer and the buyer bears the burden of self-assessing and paying the use tax to the state. This has been true of catalog sales for a long time. So the state of the buyer still can collect its sales tax in the form of what is often called a "compensating use tax". (Compensating for the sales tax) It is just that the burden of tax collection is not put upon the shoulders of the catalog seller. So I say why is an etailer any different from a catalog retailer? Simply continue to use the same system. It is fair (again IMHO) and has been evolved over time.