As far as free lunches go, the sales-tax exemption for Internet purchases lasted a good long time – more than a decade. But it doesn’t look like it’s going to last much longer. Cash-starved states are joining forces to overturn the exemption, and editorial writers are banging the tax-the-net drum. On Sunday, it was the Philadelphia Inquirer saying “e-commerce doesn’t deserve a free ride.” On Tuesday, the New York Times declared that “sales tax collection by online retailers is an idea whose time is way overdue.” On Wednesday, the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette applauded the move “to end the unfair tax advantage e-tailers and their customers enjoy.”

The argument that Internet commerce needed to be shielded from the taxman in order to nurture its growth was always pretty lame. Government-imposed advantages don’t make businesses stronger – they make them weaker. And now, with online retailing a massive industry, that argument is just plain ludicrous. A more compelling reason to exempt Internet sellers – the reason that won over the Supreme Court – is that collecting taxes for dozens of different states with different tax rates and procedures would be too onerous, especially for smaller retailers. But that argument, too, is getting weaker all the time. E-commerce is built on sophisticated software, and adding some code to track and file taxes wouldn’t be a big deal – plenty of retail chains with online stores already do it. At least some of the states, moreover, seem to be making a genuine, if belated, effort to bring some consistency to their tax schemes.

Nobody likes to pay taxes – or collect them – but it’s now time to level the playing field between Web retailers and their bricks-and-mortar counterparts. Unfair advantages aren’t just unfair – they distort competition and skew investment decisions. The Internet’s sweetheart tax exemption should be repealed. I have to admit, though, that I’m going to miss it.