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Going online to buy the latest bestseller or those photos from summer vacation may be tax free for most people, but it won't last forever.
Come this fall, 13 states will start encouraging - though not demanding - that online businesses collect sales taxes just as Main Street stores are required to do, and more states are considering joining the effort.
Right now, buyers are expected to pay sales taxes on Internet purchases themselves directly to the state when they pay their income taxes. But it's not widely enforced, and states say it costs them upwards of $15-billion a year in lost revenues, collectively.
"Taxes that it was difficult to collect before will now be collected. And consumers will pay that," said David Quam at the National Governors Association, helping lead the five-year effort that brought together state revenue officials, legislators and business leaders.
A 1992 U.S. Supreme Court ruling forbids states from forcing a business to collect their sales taxes unless the company has a physical presence in the affected state.
Organizers of the states' effort, known as the Streamlined Sales Tax Project, sought to unify tax rules and definitions among the states. They hope to persuade federal lawmakers to pass a new law to overcome the Supreme Court ruling and allow states to force online companies to levy the taxes.
But many businesses worry about the complexity of tax rates that vary from city to county to state, others the cost of collecting the taxes.
"Certainly at Amazon, we have no plans to volunteer," said Rich Prem, top tax official at Amazon.com Inc., the online giant with $7-billion in annual sales.
The states involved are offering businesses a promise - and an implicit threat. If businesses register and start collecting taxes this year, they're given a yearlong amnesty from the possibility that states may seek back taxes for online purchases.
"I wouldn't be surprised if the biggest effect comes at the end of the 12 months when businesses say "I better take this opportunity while I can,"' Hardt said.