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If the business isn't paying the tax, then I'm sure the people paying the tax can pay the tax themselves. No need to add a middleman.

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They tried that for 10 years and it didn't work. Very few people pay use tax like they should. But it wasn't cost effective to enforce every individual offender. So now they're trying something different.

Both you and Cerium are correct. Depending on buyers to collect sales tax from themselves hasn't been working. And forcing someone in a different jurisdiction to do it might not be defensible.

Thus forcing the businesses to pay or be punished. The business likely has the option of not passing the cost along to the consumer, but in the end they are the one being forced to pay the state.

No, they are forced into being tax collection agents. But they aren’t being forced. They could just not sell to people in that state if they don’t like it.

For example, at my company, I won’t hire anyone from Kentucky because their employment costs are too high. It’s a choice I get to make. I limit my employee pool but I also avoid costs I don’t like.

Being based in California I can’t choose to follow California tax law or not, but I also get to vote here.

They are not forcing the business to pay, they are forcing them to collect.

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