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This is some continuing horse manure between the state and Amazon that started when the state basically said Amazon had to collect taxes for the "associates" that were doing business in the state. Amazon then cut off the associates to remove any potential legal standing to collect taxes. Apparently the state has decided to up the ante a bit, but I don't see how they can do this without demanding a similar collection from every single e-commerce website in the entire world since the principle should be the same for all of them. For this reason and others (like gift-giving) the "use tax" is pretty much unenforceable, IMO. So, in the end, this is the state government being nothing more than petty and vindictive because Amazon isn't doing what they want them to do, to which I say, "Go Amazon!"
In my own case, I'll be mighty pissed if the state wins and sends me a back-tax bill, especially since there's no way to distinguish between the things I've bought for myself and the things I've bought as gifts for others, particularly my sister's family that lives in South Carolina and my brother who lives in Colorado (and as such, shouldn't be subject to "use taxes" since they don't live here nor use their gifts here).
At any rate, don't expect anything to be enforced any time soon as Amazon likely would carry the fight to the Supremes if they don't get their way, which would settle the legality of use taxes at that point.
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