Georgia and Iowa hit their collection targets. States don't need to leech onto Internet commerce to meet their bills. Yet some governors say they need Internet taxes to make money available when the economy slumps. They'll spend it as soon as they get it. Then, when economic hard times come, they'll be begging for taxpayers to make more sacrifices.
Online commerce is currently free from taxation.
Its protection is limited, though, to just a three-year moratorium. After that, state and local government profligates have a chance to get their hooks into the money. They've already put their lobbying machine in gear. A recent National Governors' Association report begs for the power to tax online commerce because it claims it will erode the store business that generates the sales tax collections most states rely on. That assumes, in error, that retail commerce is a zero-sum game.