Amazon sales-tax issue taken up by Congress

Congress is weighing into the roiling dispute between states and giant Internet retailer Amazon.com over collecting sales taxes on online purchases. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) is introducing legislation that would require Internet-only retailers to add sales taxes to customers' bills, just as their competitors with brick-and-mortar stores do. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) plans to introduce a similar measure in the House. The congressional effort is aimed at closing a legal loophole created by a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court decision that freed online and catalogue sellers from the obligation of collecting the sales tax if their businesses had no physical presence in the state where a buyer lives.