I disagree that it will be easy for small internet sellers to collect sales taxes nationwide. I sell model trains and some other stuff on eBay. Most of the trains I sell come from my own collection or I am selling for a friend or my train club. The things that I sell from my own collection usually don't sell for what I paid for them. My total sales are about $1,000 per year. I have a CA business license that costs $120 per year and I pay sales tax on all CA sales. (Sometimes the tax comes out of my own pocket because I can't charge tax on all sales.) Most of my eBay sales go to states East of Mississippi. I don't see how I could possibly get business licenses in every state where I make an eBay sale and collect and pay sales tax for that state. I would stop using eBay to sell excess things.
The only way a nationwide sales tax would work for small eBay sellers like me is for eBay to collect and file the appropriate tax for each state. Personally, I think that the only way for this to work would be for a uniform sales tax across all states. This would mean that states that have no sales tax would have to implement one and those states such as CA which have very high sales taxes (10% where I live) would probably have to lower their rates. (In fairness, the CA sales tax is 7%. A series of local sales taxes (county, BART, etc.) brings the total rate to 10%.)
I think that collecting sales taxes nationwide would be very difficult. This also why at York the general public is only allowed in the dealer halls. Large dealers have staffs or accountants to collect sales taxes in every state where they operate. The small seller from VA who sets up a table at York in the member hall probably does not have PA business license or collect and pay sales tax on his or her sales.
This issue is more complex that it seems at first glance.
NH Joe
