The last hope for online stores was to have the issue discussed in front of the U.S. Supreme Court but as of today, the Court has declined to hear the case and therefore, any state that wants to require online retailers to collect sales taxes will be able to do so.
For five years, Amazon and Overstock have been battling New York state over the sales tax issue and now that the Supreme Court has refused to hear the case, online retailers appear to be out of luck. Most recently, Amazon lost its case in an appeals court after it was trying to make the argument that sales taxes should not be imposed on some of its products since Amazon itself has no presence within the state of New York.
The justices who decided not to hear the case have all but agreed with the New York court's ruling, forcing Amazon, Overstock, and others, to collect sales taxes on most of their products. Amazon and its competitors had claimed that the Supreme Court needed to see the case since they had received mixed rulings from various courts around the country and the regulations in place simply were not clear enough on the issue.
EUThere are billions of dollars of commerce for which we need guidance that we can rely upon,EU said David C. Blum, a Chicago tax lawyer who has represented online retail stores including Amazon. He added: EUWe have evolved into an Internet world, and we need to know whatEUs taxable...