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Also there's little that's newsworthy in this, other than that they're trying to collect sales tax on Internet purchases. Legally Internet purchases would be considered mail order and, were it not for a specific exemption (which I believe has expired) they could have been collecting sales taxes all along. Most people think that mail order purchases are exempt from sales tax but, in most jurisdictions, the only way they're treated differently is that the seller is exempt from collecting them. Legally the buyer is still supposed to pay the sales tax-but the only place I've ever heard that's tried to enforce that is NY and I think they gave up on it. So mail order purchases have been 'de facto' exempt, but not 'de jure'. Since the Internet lost its federal exemption (I think-haven't checked but don't see how NC could even try to collect if it hadn't) it can be treated the same as any other mail order outlet-and it appears that NC is trying to do that.
As for the request for 'full records', I think that's a wording issue. I'm reasonably certain that, given the matter at hand (sales tax) NC would be satisfied with the full financial records, i.e. who purchased from Amazon & how much they paid. I doubt they're really interested in what was purchased.
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