"Amazon May Soon Need to Collect Sales Tax"

California visitors to Wal-Mart Stores' (WMT) website must pay $214 to buy a Philips Electronics (PHG) 22-inch LCD HDTV, one of the hottest-selling flat-panel televisions on the Web. Customers of Amazon.com (AMZN) in that state see a price of $194 for the same product. The discrepancy stems largely from something that dates back to Julius Caesar: sales tax. Wal-Mart, with about 100 stores in California, has to collect it. Amazon, with no stores in California—or anywhere else, for that matter—does not.

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