Online retailers can be forced to collect tax, high court rules

The U.S. Supreme Court freed states and local governments to start collecting billions of dollars in new sales taxes from online retailers, overturning a ruling that had made much of the internet a tax-free zone and put traditional retailers at a disadvantage.News of the ruling caused shares of Internet retailers including Amazon.com Inc. and Wayfair Inc. to fall.The court's 1992 decision involving catalog sales had shielded retailers from tax-collection duties if they didn't have a physical presence in a state. Writing for the 5-4 court Thursday, Justice Anthony Kennedy said that ruling was obsolete in the e-commerce era.

The sticker price not being the actual price you pay at the register is one of those things that always baffles and annoys me whenever I'm visiting the US. It seems odd to me that physical retailers have to charge tax, but online retailers don't. Seems like an odd loophole that needed fixing.