An online store has only a virtual presence. There is no real estate to tax, no roads leading to it to maintain, no police to direct traffic during blowout sales, no Fire Department calls, no dumpster full of trash out back, no crowds, no shoplifting, no armed robberies or any of the other Community expenses. The "Store" is maintained and supported with After-Tax income. We Already Gave.
Local stores, including mine will always have local support from me because of personal service and customer loyalty. But my Saturday Errands mornings do have value. There are plenty of taxes already collected in internet sales-it is just that they are hidden. UPS pays salaries and taxes and pays fuel taxes, etc, to deliver the purchases. Businesses with an in-state physical presence already do collect Sales Taxes (or say they do.). These businesses file quarterly and annually just like every other business and are just as generous at throwing away money to the Government.
The only people squealing and lobbying for internet taxes are merchants who are frightened of open-price shopping. Rather than drive from store to store shopping for price I can do it instantly. They HATE that.
Which means it effectively costs me more to patronize a on-line store in my own state.
I'm not arguing that no taxes are being collected. I'm arguing that the taxes that are being collected unfairly biased against local retailers, even on-line retailers local to the state.
We end up shipping stuff across the country, which helps drive up fuel costs, because the shipping costs are lower than the sales taxes.
Large on-line retailers end up carefully selecting where to put distribution centers, not based on the shortest distance to ship things, or the most efficient way to get things to customers, but based on how they can avoid an in state presence for the greatest number of their customers.