HB 1193 as amended requires retailers to collect the sales and use tax; if they do not the retailer is to notify customers by Jan. 31 of each year that the customers are responsible for paying the sales tax.Amazon screwed it's affiliates so it wouldn't have to tell customers that they were cheating on their taxes. That's the principle some people are defending here -- the right of Amazon to not have to tell customers that they owe the sales tax Amazon isn't collecting.
Of course, Amazon doesn't want to tell anybody that they aren't really getting a "good deal". They don't want their customers realizing that the sales tax is due even if Amazon doesn't collect it.
In fact, Amazon encourages a false notion, because they have a "sales tax" line on their shopping carts. You fill out your information, and they "tell" you how much "sales tax" you owe.
Go check it out. Right before you "place your order", you will see an "estimated sales tax" on your order summary. For most of you, it will say "0.00". And it has a note attached, and if you go down to the bottom and check out the note, the note says: "*Why has sales tax been applied? See tax and seller information".
So an unsuspecting customer could easily believe that Amazon checked the state laws, and determined that no sales tax was due from the customer. When in fact, the customer OWES the sales tax, but Amazon has simply not collected it.
They get away with this because most Americans these days, even conservatives, have been taught that cheating on their taxes is OK.
OK, I did some more checking. Sometimes Amazon includes a “note” on their sales tax, and sometimes not. And in the note, it explicitly states that they are going to check, that the sales tax they show may not be right, but that the correct sales tax will be charged to your card.
Under those circumstances, how could any customer think they have to do their own sales tax?