Buying things online could get pricier after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a case Monday that could ultimately lead to states collecting billions of dollars in sales taxes lost to increasingly popular internet retailers.
A mugger doesn't "lose" any ill-gotten gain when the victim gets away instead of handing over her purse. He never had the receipts of the robbery to lose.
Online shoppers always have owed state sales taxes on their purchases, but the rule has been widely ignored.
States have always demanded the money. That doesn't mean they're owed the money. Yo, Wyatt, I demand the keys to your car. Does that mean you owe them to me?
And back to the "lost" stuff again:
States have spent years examining ways to capture those lost tax dollars, but their options are limited when the retailers are not based in the state.
Why shouldn't the claims of states to be "owed" money and to have "lost" money be treated at least as skeptically by journalists as the similar claims of similar organizations like the Gambino family and MS13? This piece isn't reporting, it's free stenography for state departments of revenue.
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