Forbes, Are Amazon.com’s Days of Tax Free Selling Numbered?:

Are Amazon.com’s days as a haven for sales-tax shirking shoppers numbered?

Retail analyst David Strasser, a managing director at Janney Montgomery Scott, suggests that they could be.  “There’s a lot of momentum building,’’ he said Friday.  “(Amazon founder) Jeff Bezos has built a company strategically around avoiding sales tax. But they’re going to have to deal with this,” he added.

Wait a minute. Hasn’t Amazon successfully fended off pesky state tax collectors for 16 glorious years?  Yes, but the battle has entered a new stage as Amazon builds warehouse/fulfillment centers in more locations, states grow hungrier for revenue, and a rising sales tax rate (it now averages 9.64% nationwide) puts retailers who do collect tax at an ever bigger disadvantage.