Free Talk Live

Lawmakers on Friday sent Gov. Jerry Brown a compromise bill that delays California's effort to force online retailers such as Amazon.com to collect the state's sales taxes while retailers lobby Congress for national rules governing online sales taxes. The compromise between lawmakers, Amazon.com and traditional retailers would delay the expanded online tax collections until at least September 2012. That would give Amazon and other retailers time to lobby Congress for national rules governing online sales taxes.

SACRAMENTO — The days of most tax-free Internet shopping in California are over.

After years of controversy, the world's largest online retailer, Amazon.com Inc., was set to begin collecting state and local sales taxes on California purchases at 12:01 a.m. Saturday. Depending on where you live, sales taxes in the state range from 7.25% to 9.75%.

The bill would empower states to require online retailers to collect state and local sales taxes for purchases made over the Internet. The sales taxes would be sent to the states where a shopper lives.

Amazon Strongly Supports Enactment of Enzi-Durbin-Alexander Federal Online Sales Tax Bill. What Amazon once called unconstitutional, it now calls "win-win." If enacted, the Enzi-Durbin-Alexander bill will allow states to require out of state retailers to collect sales tax at the time of purchase and remit those taxes on behalf of customers, and it will facilitate collection on behalf of third party sellers.

The second most senior Democrat in the U.S. Senate, Dick Durbin, will propose a new scheme that would force online retailers like Amazon and iTunes to collect local taxes for each and every transaction. He’s expected to make the proposal the day after Tax Day, and it’s expected to be controversial within two seconds of having been announced.

Amazon is no fan of collecting state sales taxes, and it's ready to play hardball once again in its attempt to avoid the levy. An e-mail sent from the company to all of its Illinois affiliates this morning warns that, should Illinois Governor Pat Quinn sign a just-passed tax bill, Amazon is cutting off every affiliate in Illinois.

DENVER — Amazon.com Inc. cut ties Monday with Colorado online businesses that help it sell products because of a new state law aimed at getting out-of-state, online retailers to collect sales tax.

Amazon.com Inc has taken the first step toward asking California voters to repeal a new law requiring websites that forward shoppers to it to collect sales tax, a spokeswoman for the state's attorney general said on Monday.

Livonia might charge its residents a 1% administrative fee to collect their property taxes, beginning with the December tax bill.