Internet, Taxes | featured news

Amazon.com Inc., the world’s largest Internet retailer, said it will sever ties with its affiliates in California if the state enacts a new law that requires the company to collect taxes on online purchases. California Governor Jerry Brown signed legislation yesterday mandating sales-tax collections by Web retailers, including Amazon, on purchases by state residents. The state’s pending budget plan counts on $200 million from the law. In an e-mail before the bill was signed, Amazon said the legislation was “unconstitutional and counterproductive.”

State governments across the country are laying off teachers, closing public libraries and parks, and reducing health care services, but there is one place they could get $23 billion if they could only agree how to do it: Internet retailers such as Amazon.com.