ag: "if you choose to claim you are a business not required to pay the NRST, you get to be audited by state sales tax authorities to assure you actually are."
I'll just add that just because you use a business-exempt ceritifcate, it doesn't necessarily follow that you will get audited. The trick to enforcement will be to keep the probability of being audited will be high enough to discourage the bulk of folks from getting a little creative with their accounting...
Who's going to do the auditing? The state? What's in it for them, the state tax?
That's not enough money to chase down every one-man "consulting" firm that puts a personal tank of gas on the corporate credit card once a month.