I’m not familiar with Amazon’s affiliates program. But if I may give a contrarian viewpoint, I’m no fan of high taxes, but I’ve generally been in favor of sales taxes to raise revenue. Everyone cheats on their income taxes, in one way or another. But sales taxes are flat. When you buy gasoline, you pay the gas tax, and that’s that. You don’t give your gas receipt to your tax preparer.

So I generally prefer sales tax, value-added tax, flat taxes, as opposed to progressive income taxes. (A flat tax on income, with no loopholes / deductions, would be fine with me as well.) So I think there’s a point to the argument that amazon.com should collect sales taxes. It seems silly that a WalMart store collects sales taxes, and amazon.com doesn’t.

Back in the mid-1990’s, making the Internet a tax-free zone was a wonderful idea. It may have really helped get the Internet going and thriving. Nowadays, this idea may have outlived its usefulness.