Didn Congress declare a moratorium on sales tax on the Internet?
No, that is a common misconception. The Internet Tax Freedom Act of 1998 declared a moratorium on taxes on Internet access, which has no direct relevance to Amazon. It also declared a moratorium on new discriminatory taxes on e-commerce. But sales tax is neither new nor discriminatory. Thus, the ITFA prevents states from inventing a new anti-Amazon tax. But it does not exempt Amazon from any taxes, new or old, that non-Internet retailers have to pay. In May 2000, the original three-year moratorium of the Internet Tax Freedom Act was extended for another five years by the Internet Nondiscrimination Act of 2000. (http://www.ecommercecommission.org/ITFA.htm) (http://freedom.house.gov/library/itfa/sum2000.
