Sales tax is a use tax that the consumer owes to his/her state for every product they buy. Consumers (not the merchant) owe the tax whether they purchase from a local or interstate company. Local, in-state merchants are tasked with collection within their state of operation. However, traditionally, it has been deemed too burdensome for merchants to collect and remit taxes for every state they do not operate in. Consumers are under the “honor system” to calculate and remit use taxes for products purchased from out-of-state (and famously fail to do so).

I don’t object to merchants collecting all taxes, but there needs to be some kind of standard system to handle it. Credit card processors could add a sales tax processing and remittance services to their product line, however, receiving states (rather than merchants) should pay for the service.

One other benefit is that by not paying sales tax you can generally cancel out the shipping and handling costs.

Fwiw I also buy things locally, but only where the total cost of the purchase would be comparable.

On top of that, as a personal note, I have been searching for two weeks at local new and used bookstores for a book without success, but I guarantee I will find it with a few clicks on Amazon or other online retailers. Nonetheless, for every boarded up storefront they show, in my town there is a locally-owned, used book store popping up on every corner and they are PACKED with customers. And, that’s supposedly Amazon’s primary competitor!

It’s time for states to realize that it’s the inherent nature of the sales tax that’s leading to declining sales tax revenues as our country moved away from manufacturing to service industries, not the Amazon boogieman/scapegoat.