Here's a news item from the Associated Press:  BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Idaho lawmakers will at least debate joining the nationwide effort to tax Internet sales following a 12-6 vote in favor of introducing the measure in the House Revenue and Taxation Committee. Wednesday's vote brings the bill just as far as it made it during the 2010 Legislature, before it died on a deadlocked committee vote. In fact, four similar measures have died in the House since 2007. But the tax committee's chairman, Republican Rep. Dennis Lake, says he's convinced the panel's changed roster this year could give this push a better chance of surviving. Lake is among proponents who say joining the national push to tax Internet sales will help level the playing field for Idaho's Main Street brick-and-mortar merchants who suffer a 6 percent sales tax handicap, compared with many Internet businesses.

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