Amazon to Start Collecting Indiana State Sales Tax in 2014
13th January 2012
As the biggest kid on the e-commerce block, Amazon now advocates the federal government forcing all online merchants to collect sales taxes on every sale.
Paul Misener, Amazon’s vice president for global public policy, said at a news conference in the governor’s office that the company supported federal legislation requiring all sales tax collections by all online companies.
“It’s the only way to level the playing field for all sellers,” Misener said. “It’s the only way for Indiana to obtain all the sales tax revenue that is already owed.”
Except that it doesn’t, of course, any more than making an Abrams tank and a Smart For Two drive in the same six feet of snow ‘levels the playing field’. The cost of compliance for ‘all online companies’ is pocket change for an entity like Amazon, but could kill most smaller vendors — which Amazon, in classic crapitalism fashion, is trying to stifle before they get out of the crib and become competitors. Bezos is a sellout, after all. How disappointing.