This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2013, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Attention, Utah members of Congress: The time to tax online purchases is now. Join Wyoming's Republican Sen. Mike Enzi as a cosponsor of the bill to have Internet retailers collect local sales taxes from all their customers.

Opponents says sales taxes should only be collected from people living in states where the retailer has a brick-and-mortar presence. Well, Amazon.com has a service desk right at your own computer station in your brick-and-mortar home.

All online companies have that presence in every state in the Union — in the home or business where your computer station is located. Those home- and business-owners pay property taxes and their local community provides services, like snow removal, that must be paid for.

Having every purchaser pay local sales taxes is a lot more equitable.

The only problem with a national sales tax collection system is that the federal government could more easily make a case for creating a national sales tax. And we know how the bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., are always looking for new ways to tax us.

Jack W. Kreider

Evanston, Wyo.