America really is the United States of America, in which, when it comes to tax policies and the like, each individual State has its own peculiarities; though most States, on a fundamental level, have consistency to one another on how they go about doing that taxing. One of the most annoying things that tourists visiting an individual State have to put up with, when they so rent a car or book a hotel room, is to be subject to a tourism tax, which usually is applicable, even when one is a resident of that particular State, just by virtue of renting that hotel room or car. This seems to be one of those things, in which, as a captive audience, tourists can’t escape from, and the purpose of such a tax, seems unfair, since those paying such, are bringing in revenue into a particular locality, and having to pay a premium for the opportunity to do so.
What we so find with corporations today, is that with the exception of some huge multinational corporations, such as Walmart, that most multinational corporations actually do not have a physical location in each individual State, but typically have a hub State, which is their headquarters, as well as some “sister” locations in different States; yet, a lot of these corporations actually sell and do business throughout all fifty of the States. As it stands presently, whether or not a given corporation charges and therefore collects a sales tax from those that it sells to in a given State, is subject to the rules and regulations of those States. Yet, consider this, when out-of-State corporations make a sale into a State that they have no physical presence in, they are in essence, trading goods for money, and therefore that State is losing that money in the sense of it no longing circulating locally. This would seem to imply that for those corporations that have no physical presence in States that they conduct sales and business in, that they should have some sort of obligation to pay something for the opportunity to conduct that business in the first place.
So then, out-of-State corporations, should be subject to their own version of a tourism tax, of some reasonable but small amount, for anything that so is sold to States in which they have no physical presence; something akin to what tourists have to pay for lodging in a particular State that they are not a resident of. This “tourism tax” so attached to a product being sold, could then be priced into the product so being sold, and therefore, in essence, paid by the buyer of such, or it could be absorbed by the corporation, or it could also be shared between the two parties.
It seems that in the scheme of things, most communities would be better served with sales being so transacted being local, to the extent that such is possible; thereby providing a continuing money circulating foundation for the infrastructure so needed for communities; so when, those out-of-State corporations come in with better pricing or whatnot, they should as a form of tribute, so to speak, pay a price for extracting money from the wallets of given communities, as the tax they so owe for having access to that community.