States with ever expanding budgets and dwindling revenue have been chomping at the bit to tax internet sales. Most states use the honor system whereby internet purchasers are supposed to voluntarily send in their hard earned money as a tax on their internet purchases. Not surprisingly, that doesn't raise much revenue.

Revenue rarely rises above a few hundred thousand dollars as taxpayers ignore the law when ordering books, CDs, computers and gourmet food on the still mostly tax-free Internet. New York's Legislature, for example, estimated last year that $25 million could be reclaimed, while the governor guessed it would be no more than $5 million. [...]

The 18 states besides New York that have added lines on their income tax forms seeking to recover some of the estimated $10 billion lost nationally each year on uncollected sales taxes for purchases on the Internet and through mail order:

Notice how they refer to money that they have been unable to seize from Americans with terms like "reclaimed" and "lost", as if it was somehow stolen from them. In the eyes of government, it isn't your money, it's theirs. They just haven't yet found a way to get their hands on it yet. Remember forty percent of all money earned in this country is being seized by some level of government.