• Los Angeles Times, Thursday, September 8, 2011 12:16 PM

Amazon.com appears to have cut a tentative deal with legislative leaders in California that will allow it to postpone collecting sales taxes from state residents for another year. "The company, in turn, would drop its battle to overturn the state's new law that required it and many other out-of-state online retailers to collect the taxes," The Los Angeles Times reports.

The new law had mandated that Internet retailers start collecting state taxes in July if they had offices, workers or other connections in California. As the LA Times notes, Amazon had refused to collect the taxes and poured $5 million into collecting signatures for a ballot referendum challenging the law. Under the new deal, Amazon will delay collecting taxes until September 2012.

"It's a safe harbor for up to a year," Assemblyman Charles Calderon (D-Whittier) tells the LA Times. "If they can't get Congress to act by next July, then they will start to collect the tax in September 2012. If by chance they get Congress to act, then that would trump the state law."

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