The battle is headed for Tampa's City Council and possibly to court. We simply don't have the resources to sue all of those companies that are doing Internet gambling or prescription drugs, and so we are trying to target our resources. The Internet allows even the smallest businesses to conduct worldwide sales. But the same technology enabling commerce to expand in ways never thought possible disables governments' efforts to regulate that commerce. Fraud is a concern.
Taxes are virtually nonexistent.
Sales to any other state are exempt from local or state taxation. While mail-order catalogs have always caused some loss, that loss was steady and predictable. But the Internet economy has sprung up nearly overnight, and presents a rapidly growing threat to sales-tax revenue. State and local governments, understandably, want to protect that revenue. It's the exponential growth that we're going to have here that has really got state and local government worried.