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I understand what the online retailing giant is up to here. Call it Amazon’s own series of state tea parties.
But to argue that online sales taxes are unconstitutional is
a bit much. Amazon can hardly be unfamiliar with the legal concept called nexus,
under which courts have commonly upheld the idea that states can tax a company on
sales produced in their jurisdiction even if it has no physical presence there.
More likely, it looks to us as if Amazon is preparing the
ground for an all-out assault on the concept through a business-friendly
Supreme Court. The idea is hardly uncontroversial, as reflected in a wide body
of literature on the arguments over it, including in a venerable financial pub that John Goff and I used to
work for.
Might the Supremes agree to take on an appeal of one or more
these cases and throw nexus out the window? If anyone’s got a big enough stake
in this to seek such an outcome, it’s Amazon.
So stay tuned.
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