Remote vendors and American sales and use taxation: The balance between fixing the problem and fixing the tax

The remote vendor problem challenges the sales tax as a revenue producer; e ven more critical, though, is damage to economic balance, efficiency, and f airness. Congressional relief from the physical presence rule-rendered obso lete by uncertainty about what presence means and by "click and brick" affi liates-requires no undue burden for multi-state enterprises. State adoption s of a burden-reducing common tax structure would be virtually impossible b ecause states have substantially different shares of their tax systems at s take in the sales tax and because they start from unique sales tax structur es designed for their own economies and politics. Congress could handle the problem by requiring registration for large remote vendors, but only for s tates affording vendor-friendly compliance (no local use taxes and reasonab le collection compensation).