Seriously? Amazon may be the root of online evil.

As I am beginning my day today like I do most days with a quick check of my email, I stumble upon a snippet of an article in Shelf Awareness about how if North Carolina successfully passes a law mandating that online retailers collect sales tax from their "marketing affiliates", whatever that means, and only 4.5% mind you . . . most states hover around the 7-8% mark, then Amazon will pull all of their business out of the state. Seriously, are you kidding me? EVERY OTHER TRADITIONAL RETAILER COLLECTS SALES TAX! QUIT BITCHING AND DO IT! I may be young and I may not have all of the information, but how can collecting sales tax (which is something that has been going on for decades without much of an issue until the online age) be "unconstitutional"? If you are getting paid for goods (or for referring said goods and get a commission), then sales tax should be collected (garage sales are probably the main exception even though you technically are supposed to claim that on your return, but who really does?). The online retailers have made BILLIONS of dollars in the last decade and the states deserve their fair share. The rest of us have been dutifully paying sales tax every month, why shouldn't they? Sales tax is a vital source of revenue for the state economy and frankly, the online retailers who complain that it will bankrupt them to have to pay it are being short-sighted and selfish in the long-run. I understand that having to shell out more money for another random expense is hard in this economy but this money is what fixes our roads, pays for our schools, feeds those who can't feed themselves, pays unemployment, and generally allows the states to operate. Amazon, by complaining that this law is unconstitutional, is basically going to force other NC retailers out of business because it will not allow them to be a part of their referral program, which constitutes much of their business. This in turn, will cost the state money because these people will then be a strain on their economy. The ripple effect is enormous.

But the biggest problem isn't this issue with North Carolina. The biggest problem is that most of these online retailers haven't been collecting sales tax for years and if the states don't choose to enforce or even enact a sales tax law, it will continue to go uncollected. But my favorite part of the whole scenario is that when the states do try to put a law into effect, all of the retailers immediately cry foul like the states are trying to do something that is unreasonable rather than something that every other retailer that happened to decide to do business in an actual store has been doing since forever. It's just ridiculous. If this issue isn't resolved there is never going to be any sort of level playing field, no matter what the industry and no matter what the state of our economy.

This rant is obviously coming from the perspective of an independent bookseller. Our industry is in DIRE straits right now partially because of the lack of a level playing field: stores closing every day, discrepancies in publisher discounts between smaller retailers and giant chains, an industry that is dominated by "bestsellers" that more often than not lead to returns, etc. And the biggest thing that we can do is to try to protect ourselves.