The Marketplace Fairness Act doesn't raise taxes

When I filed my taxes earlier this month, I paid my use tax to the State of Illinois. A lot of people don't pay use tax, and enforcement is almost nonexistent. But there it was on the form I had to sign, and it was all of 50 bucks or something, so I paid it.

Those of us who live in a state with a sales tax are required to pay tax on online purchases. When the merchant doesn't have a physical presence in our state, typically the burden has fallen on us to choose to pay the tax rather than on merchants to add it to our orders. This approach hasn't gotten a ton of takers.

A while back some states, including Illinois, were trying to use the existence of brick-and-mortar affiliate partners as a way to force online retailers to start collecting sales tax. Amazon's resistance strategy included cutting the Century and other such Illinoyances out of its affiliate program.