It works like this: Online (and traditional mail-order) companies don’t collect or pay sales taxes in states where they have no locations. If they do have a location within the state, then they are supposed to collect and pay sales tax.

Except for Amazon, which has consistently refused to collect sales tax, even in Texas, where it operates a distribution center. Last year, the state presented Amazon with a $269 million tax bill and the online retailer threatened to pull out. Now, in what some are calling a Hail Mary pass, Amazon has offered to bring 5,000 new jobs to Texas if the state will exempt it from sales tax for four-and-a-half years.

“Thanks, but no thanks,” will likely be the response, according to Republican State Senator Bob Deuell, based on what he’s hearing on the senate floor. And he’s skeptical about the offer in any case. “I don’t see how in the world they can provide 5,000 jobs at distribution centers. Those operate very efficiently, with computers and mechanized things,” Deuell told the Austin American-Statesman ^[1]. “I don’t want to doubt their word and their intentions; I just don’t see how they bring 5,000 jobs to the state.”

It may not be over yet. This spring, a similar jobs-for-tax-exemption deal was voted down by South Carolina’s legislature and Amazon threatened to pull out of that state, but an 11th-hour renegotiation and re-vote saved the day.

Read more at Statesman.com ^[1].