Here in Michigan (and in several other states) during the April 2004 tax season a new form was mailed to taxpayers. That form was for making taxpayers pay sales tax on items bought out of state on the Internet. It also shipped with a huge chart for the current sales tax rates for each state because you have to list the items you bought along with the state that it was purchased from and then pay the sales tax of that state.

Now I see an article on Yahoo that talks about 13 states (Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and West Virginia. Five that will be added in the next few years are Arkansas, Ohio, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming.) was start to "encourage" that online businesses collect sales taxes just as though an online purchase was made from their "brick and mortar" store. What's the deal with that?