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How soon before state governments start claiming that these lockers are a physical presence of Amazon's retail operations?

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Well, apparently the only one in existence is in Seattle (about eight blocks away from me, as it works out).

My guess is that the answer to "how soon" would be 'the second one of these boxes appears in a state where Amazon does not yet collect sales tax.'

That said, I'm guessing that Amazon's lawyers would argue that this is effectively identical to a P.O. box, and therefore totally exempted. At least, that's what I'd argue.

edit: or not owned by Amazon at all. Good call.

Or the boxes are owned by a company which is not Amazon.

Make it a joint venture with UPS and use it for all kinds of deliveries and win.

Yeah, but the law is always murky about what constitutes a "physical presence," and the interpretations vary from state to state. I'm fairly certain that if they started springing up all over the US, there would be a lot of debate about whether a sales tax was required.

In any case, there's no way Amazon would keep these around if they alone necessitated a sales tax, since the trade-off would be too great.

These will be undoubtedly owned by 7-11. It's a virtual guarantee of getting more people to come into your store that may buy something since they're already there.

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