Comment Re:All your tax avoidance schemes are done (Score 1) 293
Point 5: To get around the "foreign transaction" problem, States came up with the idea of a "use tax". Since they have no authority to tax a transaction that takes place in another state, what they do is tax the purchaser for the use of the item they purchased elsewhere. The use tax is invariably the same amount as a sales tax would be, BUT it isn't a tax on the transaction, it is a tax on the use of the item within the resident's state. So it is legal.
Ok, so if you say, it must be the way the law works in the US. Fine. But the way you say it, it appears you think it is morally justified, and a fair tax. Is it so?
I don't, because the "use tax" is quite opaquely an adaptation of sales tax, as you yourself say. So why should a buyer pay a "sales tax" twice - once in the state where the "transaction" takes place, and second time in the state where the item will be used?