To call this a "tax dodge" is libel. Amazon does not owe the taxes. The citizens of California do. How can Amazon be accused of dodging taxes that it is not liable to pay.<p>Once again the New York Times places the blame on business, when the blame belongs on the consumer, and on the government that has made the state of California hostile to doing business within its borders.<p>If the law is re-interpreted to mean that the <i>ability</i> of another state's citizens to purchase from your business in the privacy of their homes, constitutes an obligation of said business to collect taxes on behalf of the consumer's state, then all such transactions must be equal, regardless of the distribution channel. Business conducted by catalog or by phone should also impose such a burden on a retailer.<p>Consider where this would have to go: every retailer would have, of necessity, to collect taxes for 50+ tax authorities, as state-after-state makes the same demand on the retailer. While large businesses (admittedly, Amazon being one of them) have the infrastructure in place to do this, most small businesses do not. Their costs will inevitably increase, as they attempt to comply with the burden of collecting for and reporting to all the various regional tax authorities.<p>How many brick-and-mortar shops survive today based upon their online business? Shall said businesses be required, by the government to <i>turn away</i> out-of-state customers because they are not equipped to collect taxes for their customers' states of residence?
"Every man is entitled if he can to arrange his affairs so that the tax attaching under the appropriate Acts is less than it otherwise would be. If he succeeds in ordering them so as to secure that result, then, however unappreciative the Commissioners of Inland Revenue or his fellow taxpayers may be of his ingenuity, he cannot be compelled to pay an increased tax."
"... These cash-strapped governments ..."<p>Because we all know the governments are very thrifty and efficient when spending taxpayers money? Somehow I can't bring myself to feel any pity for these poor governments.