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Amazon fights online state sales tax in New York

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Reporting from New York— Amazon.com Inc.has insisted that California’s new law requiring it to collect sales taxes from customers in the state would hurt the company’s ability to compete in the nation’s biggest retail market.Nevertheless, in New York, the company and other out-of-state, Internet-only retailers have paid $250 million in sales taxes over three years, thanks to a similar law that state adopted in 2008.

New York holds no special sway over the world’s largest online retailer. Amazon is following the state’s tax collection law, the first in the nation, for one reason only — so it can challenge the validity of the statute in court.

Elsewhere, it is fighting back ferociously. Last week, for instance, Amazon filed papers to seek a voter referendum to kill California’s 3-week-old law, and defied the state by saying it wouldn’t collect the taxes. On Monday, the state gave it the go-ahead to collect voter signatures to qualify the petition for the next election.

Full story: For Amazon, stakes are high in sales tax fight