I live in Illinois but make almost all of my purchases in Indiana -- groceries, gasoline, smokes, you name it. The sales/gas/tobacco taxes are lower there and so the prices of most things are lower. I guess the state of Illinois figures I'm screwing them out of some tax revenue but, as far as I know, they can't do anything about it. I pay the tax in Indiana and would gladly make my purchases in Illinois except for the burdensome taxation my state has chosen to stick to its residents.
I haven't made any online or catalog purchases in a long time, but I seem to recall that the vendor can charge a sales tax to customers only who live in the same state as that in which the vendor is located. Why not change that law so that online or catalog vendors charge that tax to everyone, regardless of where they live?
I don't see why my online or catalog purchase from a vendor, say, in Indiana, should be handled any differently from when I physically go to a vendor's counter in Indiana and make the purchase that way.
Of course, there's probably some federal statute that might stop this from happening. But I think this commonsense solution would kill three birds with one stone -- it would allow people to make their purchases where they decide; it would remove the temptation for people to be tax scofflaws, and it would reduce somewhat certain states' reputations for banditry.
"I haven't made any online or catalog purchases in a long time, but I seem to recall that the vendor can charge a sales tax to customers only who live in the same state as that in which the vendor is located."
Not quite. While that's the way that most people interpret that law, there are several states (namely California) that interpret the law as "if you sell to someone in our state, you charge them our sales tax". And they will bring the legal system in to force people to do so.