Lana Whited at Roanoke.Com

I ordered from Barnes & Noble online recently, and when my order confirmation came by e-mail, I noticed this line: "Sales tax is applied to orders shipped to NJ, NY, TN and VA."

Why, I've been wondering, is sales tax not applied to orders shipped to the other 46 states?

Because of Virginia's governor and others who think like he does.

Gov. Jim Gilmore heads an Internet tax commission whose mission is to see that the Internet remains a tax-free zone. In public, the commission gives as its reason the notion that "the Internet is the future of commerce," as House Majority Leader Dick Armey , R-Texas, said recently. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, when malls were regarded as "the future of commerce," I don't recall anybody proposing that mall merchants be exempted from sales taxes.

Usually, when I write a column, I do a fair amount of reading to make sure I understand the issues. I don't want to be blind-sided by an argument I haven't anticipated. This time, however, I read one story from The New York Times, and I didn't feel I really needed to read that.

This issue is simple enough for junior high school civics students to understand: the Internet has to be taxed. No principle of logic supports any other argument.

In fact, no principle of logic has been offered by Gilmore & Company. The best they've been able to offer is the complaint that taxing Internet merchants would be complicated, due to tax codes varying from state to state. Of course, we are already asking the government to do plenty of complicated things, so that complaint reminds me of when my students whine, "but that assignment sounds so HARD."

I will concede that a system of flat taxation for the Internet might be desirable. I haven't thought long and hard about that, and I do see its advantages. However, I think I'm still going to have problems with taxing an e-merchant headquartered in Virginia less than Fud's Minute Market down the road. What would the rationale for that be? That customers have to use the road system supported by state tax dollars when they motor to Fud's but not when they modem to an e-business? I confess I have more thinking to do here.

Gilmore & Co.'s real agenda is to protect the business and investment interests of their campaign backers. Internet commerce is big business -- the wave of the future, Rep. Armey says. For as long as I can remember, some politicians, usually members of Armey's and Gilmore's party, have worked to bring the biggest tax breaks to those who already have the most money. And many of us, in our perverse American adoration of rich people regardless of their integrity, have voted for these politicians. "Oh, sure," we say with our ballots, "go ahead and give Bill Gates breaks on his capital gains. After all, he's got far more money than I do. I'm sure he'll end up paying a lot of taxes one way or the other."

The interesting question, to me, is not why politicians with wealthy supporters want tax breaks but why the rest of us let them get away with it. Don't we realize they're taking advantage of us, forcing us to shoulder more of the burden they ought to be carrying? The Internet IS big business, and the biggest beneficiaries ought to be paying their fair share.

Why is there so much support for keeping the Internet tax-free?

First of all, because it benefits us in the short-run. I could have gotten that Barnes & Noble book 88 cents cheaper if Barnes & Noble hadn't charged me sales tax (and if you're wondering why I was charged that tax, it's because the online divisions of "brick and mortar" businesses -- companies with physical stores -- are still required to assess sales tax, although those which exist purely in cyberspace are not. Go figure the fairness of that.)

Secondly, many people have a general feeling that they're paying too much in taxes. According to a CNN poll I saw this week, 58 percent of Americans feel they're taxed "too much," compared to 37 percent who think their contribution is "about right" and NONE who think they should be paying more (5 percent were unsure). I understand that no one -- myself included -- wants to pay more taxes than necessary, but complaints about services funded by state sales taxes are all over the place. We want better schools. We want the roads improved. We want top-notch emergency and protective services. We want effective prison systems. And we sometimes complain about taxes as though we think the money for those services can just be manufactured in the mint. It can't, and, in general, we get what we pay for.

Just this week, there was a big national reaction to Gilmore & Co. On Wednesday, a bipartisan group of 36 governors delivered a letter to Congress imploring the nation's representatives to discontinue the Internet's exemption from taxation. The letter, signed by many governors with reputations as tax-cutters, argued (according to The New York Times) that continuing the tax exemption "would substantially interfere with state sovereignty . . . (and) states' ability to independently raise revenues." Among the signers were 19 Republicans, 15 Democrats, and two independents. Among the signatures missing were those of Gilmore and both Bushes -- George W., of Texas, and Jeb, of Florida.

Among major businesses, Wal-Mart has been prominent in opposing the exemption.

So there are signs that support for the tax-free Internet is weakening. The New York Times reported that John McCain, R-Arizona, a vocal supporter of the tax exemption, cancelled Thursday's Senate Commerce Committee vote on a bill that would extend the exemption from 2003 to 2006. The committee's staff director said the vote was delayed indefinitely because senators want more time to study the issue.

And although the staff director insisted that the issue is becoming "less political," the senators need to couch their positions in a states' rights argument still seems political to me. Clearly, states' rights ARE involved. But it seems to me that anybody who got elected to Congress should be able to see the real problem with exempting the Internet from taxes:

It just isn't fair.

Tax the Internet? You betcha