States’ online ‘Amazon tax’ fight may land in Supreme Court

There is no national sales tax and Congress has not moved ahead with proposed legislation that would give all states the power to enforce their sales tax laws on Internet retailers.

Diverging high court rulings in New York and Illinois over ‘Amazon taxes’ point to a possible U.S. Supreme Court case to settle questions about the legality of states taxing online retail sales, lawyers said on Monday.

With Congress failing to take action on the issue, courts have been intervening case-by-case in a long-running struggle between state governments and major online retailers, including Amazon.com Inc, over sales tax.

On Friday, the Illinois Supreme Court voided a state law attempting to collect sales taxes from online purchases. A trade group representing Amazon and other online businesses had challenged the state’s online sales tax in court….Please click here to read Patrick Temple-West’s  Reuters story on MSN News.