by Declan McCullagh
U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who announced his retirement on Friday, is arguably the most liberal member of the court. What's less open to debate is that a pair of his opinions written over a decade ago outlined the legal environment that gave rise to today's Internet.
Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens
(Credit: U.S. Supreme Court)
Amazon.com, Newegg.com, Overstock.com, and other major Internet retailers can trace much of their growth in the last decade to Stevens' 1992 opinion that said, unambiguously, that they cannot be required to collect sales taxes on out-of-state sales. That gave them a competitive advantage over traditional rivals like Borders and Best Buy that did charge sales taxes--while irking state tax collectors immeasurably.
In Quill v. North Dakota, Stevens wrote that such "vendors are free from state-imposed duties to collect sales and use taxes." He was talking about a catalog retailer named Quill Corporation that sold about $200 million of office supplies a year, but the decision swept in future e-commerce sales as well.
Stevens' opinion on behalf of a unanimous court did stress that the U.S. Congress is "free to decide whether, when, and to what extent the states may burden interstate mail-order concerns" by requiring sellers to collect taxes. That presaged a political battle on Capitol Hill, pitting governors against Internet firms, that has lasted at least nine years, with no resolution so far, and shows no sign of abating anytime soon.
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