The San Francisco Chronicle, doing what it does best—lie. Amazon is not required to collect CA sales tax on items sold by Amazon.com. The law has to do with in-state affiliates, from whom Amazon has just disaffiliated itself.
-——Amazon is not required to collect CA sales tax on items sold by Amazon.com. -——
I think you are wrong. The state collects taxes from state merchants for sales in the state. The affiliates are deemed to be Amazon presence in California as a merchant, therefore all Amazon sales to customers in the state are subject to the tax.
That is the way it is here in Tennessee and other states
By getting rid of the affiliates Amazon removed it’s presence in California and hence a tax obligation