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Yes, on the "drivers licenses for illegal immigrants", but also on counting Amazon affiliates as a "substantial business presence" in order to invoke the sales and use tax.
Michael Swartz over at Monoblogue had posted about this yesterday, wondering if Guvnah Marty the Mick might try it here.
Michael's post was insightful, but the worry was unlikely, because Spitzer (and O'Malley) would have gotten hung up by the fact nearly every court has held that "substantial" means a physical presence.
For example, if you order something from Target.com, and you live in Maryland, you will pay the 5% sales tax. Why? They have a physical presence in the state.
Given that Amazon affiliates are not employees, it can hardly be said that Amazon.com has a physical presence in the state.
In my employer's case, if we sell marketing and creative services to a Maryland company, we do not charge sales tax. Yes, I work in Maryland, but I work from my house, and the company pays no expenses related to that (none whatsoever). They technically have no physical presence in the state.
This is going to be a problem, though. Online sales through sites like Amazon and even eBay are becoming a much bigger part of the economy. If states move to tax transactions on Amazon.com and eBay, they are most certainly going to have to do it to the mom and pops running Yard Sales and posting classifieds. It will not be long before an important of the "off white" market starts to collapse into a serious black market situation. You think that music and movie trading online is bad?
You haven't seen anything until you start taking away a family's ability to make a few extra bucks selling off grandmom's old costume jewlery and junior's baby clothes.