You assume incorrectly. I am economically conservative as they come. I find nothing conservative about rules which give one player an advantage over the other in what should be a free and fair game.
Other than the IRS and equivalent state and local agencies, who is a paid tax collector?
They are effectively being enslaved. They are made into forced labor without compensation. They are forced by the full might of The State to be unpaid tax collectors.
Impressive hyperbole, but hardly persuasive. If you aren't smart enough to handle this requirement which literally hundreds of thousands of businesses do on a regular basis, then both Darwin and Adam Smith say you shouldn't be in a competition you can't handle.
It has nothing to do with smarts. It has everything to do with it being another in a long-list of government imposed burdens on my time, and an un-reimbursed direct expense that I must carry. This is an unfunded mandate - all because they choose not to enforce their existing laws. Large corporations can more readily absorb this expense or, like Amazon, already are so omnipresent that they calculate, collect, remit and report today. Small businesses cannot simply adapt to the time burden or new expense.
If these States want the tax revenue due on interstate transactions, then they should just go after the ones that are already obligated to pay it - their own residents. What they should NOT do is violate the Commerce Clause of the Constitution.
Your solution to a town imposing a draconian tax on its local merchants is to require all merchants everywhere to knuckle under to their rules.
Apparently the term “economically conservative” has been redefined beyond all recognition by the university you attended.
To paraphrase Lincoln, calling it economic conservatism does not make it economic conservatism.
From various comments here, and some direct experience of my own, it appears the collection of taxes can be computerized at moderate cost for small businesses. I say moderate because web competition can be fierce and margins razor thin. Back when I was selling online, I often considered myself lucky to gross 20% on a $5 item, meaning my net might be 10%. So... take out even the $.10 mentioned above for calculation for the collection - yeah, even that is pretty significant.
Worse, however, is the time involved in filing. In my state you do it annually, quarterly, or monthly depending on overall sales, which in my case recently became a real pain because although my consulting income (by far my biggest source of income) is not subject to sales tax (unless I sell an item in conjunction with the consulting work, and that item is of course then taxed), that consulting income now adds to the total used to figure how often I must file, even if I do not sell a single item. Grrrrrr....!
But, anyway, back to the filing & sending in payments - it’s semi-automated on my state’s tax authority’s website, but, still, when all is said and done, I’ve probably spent couple hours on it, each time I file. It might be a LITTLE more efficient to do ‘em all sequentially, but that’s offset by the time needed to understand all the different States’forms, and any changes as they crop up occasionally. Once registered, I have to file each period even if there is NO tax liability for that period. This times 50? Quarterly, most likely? Oh, yiii-yiii-yiii!!!
This is not a matter of how “smart” I or another poster may be (a really “fugly”, telling, and not very “smart” comment by you, I would say.) Some stuff takes time no matter how smart or evolved or “whatever” one is. And you know what time is, right?
I also fail to see the big advantage small operations have in usually not having to mess with all this for out of state sales, up until now. Shipping has become EXPENSIVE, esp. if one is a small operator and doesn’t get eBay or Amazon or even, oh, say “$20 million a year shipped” type discounts. If one only sells relatively small / light items for the item cost, then maybe tax is more than shipping, but my experience is that shipping is usually more than sales tax on the item(s). As a (quite small) former online retailer, I had to add something the locals could not, to make sales, in most cases.
Another thing: I find a $100,000.00 sales “threshold” ludicrous. The net profit from that $ amount of online sales in most cases would not even be close to poverty level income.
Last, I suppose all the arguments of who in business (and consumers) is or is not benefitted, taken in total, might be a wash? For a moment, I’ll accept that.
What is left is “more government”. Just what you support, eh? Eh?