The end LOL was not necessary then if you were trying to 'educate' me.
No retailer EVER pays sales tax. Retailers collect sales tax on behalf of the state. So Amazon was not collecting
There were a few reasons why they were not collecting. Honestly, top of the list was it gave them an advantage. It allowed them to sell at a discount. The second issue and this is what Amazon's size has helped fix is the state sales tax system. If you think there are 50 taxing authorities in the US, you are incorrect
There are thousands. There are taxes at the sale level that can be levied by the state, the county, the city. And when it gets to the city, it can differ within the city. From experience . . . one of my clients got audited and owed a couple thousand dollars in taxes to a city. Why? Because the tax rate was different in the building for the top half versus the bottom half. When we built out their system we collected by zip code. We didn't know the intricacies of the city tax code. That is why we found Avalara and just use it!
I am well aware of what taxes pay for. If you want to turn this into a tax debate, we can. I can tell you that barking up the buyer of a bike is the wrong tree. You should bark up the tree of corporations.