'TOO SOON TO TELL' GOV. DAVIS WAFFLING ON INTERNET TAX ISSUE.

Byline: CHRIS WEINKOPF

SACRAMENTO'S tax-starved spendthrifts are always on the lookout for new sources of revenue, one more place to wring a few additional pennies out of California's beleaguered taxpayers. They think they've found it in cyberspace.

The would-be Internet-taxers may or may not include the governor, who, being Gray Davis, is congenitally incapable of taking a clear stand on the issue. Like the car tax, which he opposes (for now), the Net tax is not on his immediate agenda, but he's willing to reconsider that position.

For the moment, California's online shoppers are safe, thanks to two U.S. Supreme Court rulings that prohibit states from compelling out-of-state companies to collect sales taxes. Because the U.S. Constitution charges the federal government with regulating interstate commerce, the court has determined that states can only tax their residents' online purchases if the retailer has a physical presence (such as a corporate office or storefront) within their borders.

Throughout the Internet boom of the 1990s, California resisted the temptation to tax in-state sales because no one wanted to slow down the industry that was already creating surpluses faster than Sacramento could spend them.

But that was then.

Now there are no tax receipts from dot-com stock options to make Sacramento flush, and the spending spree the Net financed has raised the cost of government far beyond the means of traditional tax targets.

Thus the ``need'' for new revenue sources, and the eagerness to soak the surfer set.

The plans are already on the table.

State Sen. Dede Alpert, D-San Diego, has proposed legislation that would begin taxing all in-state Net sales, which, if passed, would be a textbook illustration of the law of unintended consequences at work.

As Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Thousand Oaks, has pointed out, online shoppers ``are literally one mouse click away from a competitor with no presence in California.'' A tax on in-state sales would simply ``shift commerce from BarnesandNoble.com to Amazon.com.''

Alpert's tax would penalize companies for doing business in California - as if the state's hefty income taxes and regulations weren't incentive enough to close up shop and move elsewhere.

A craftier taxer than Alpert is her Senate colleague, Debra Bowen, D- Redondo Beach. Bowen proposes that California join more than 30 other states in a collusive - and brazenly unconstitutional - racket to create a uniform sales-tax system, which would facilitate interstate sales taxes.

But even Bowen's cyber-taxing ambitions pale compared to those of state Treasurer Steve Westly.

Westly, who made a fortune as an eBay executive and used his millions to bankroll a successful campaign for statewide office, now contemplates various ways of gouging anyone, not just shoppers, who spends time online. Among his considerations are a tax on Internet access and a levy on downloads.

If Westly and fellow Democrats get their way, all California consumers will end up paying dearly, even those who don't use the Internet at all.

In other, smaller states, governments are hampered in their ability to raise sales taxes because consumers can take their shopping across state lines. But for most Californians, that's not an option, meaning the state's lawmakers have little to keep them from routinely raising rates. Already, California has one of the highest sales taxes in the nation, and if the Legislature approves Davis' budget plan, it will go up again, this time by roughly 12 percent.

The only check on exorbitant sales taxes in California is the consumers' current freedom to opt out by purchasing items online or through a catalog, even if that means paying shipping fees and waiting a few days for delivery.

No wonder Sacramento wants to terminate the threat the Net poses to its tax-hiking powers. And no wonder dozens of state governments want to effectively nationalize sales taxes, thereby undermining America's federalist and constitutional underpinnings at the expense of consumers everywhere.

So what does the governor think of all this?

Davis has previously opposed Internet taxation, but that was before he created a $35 billion budget deficit. ``While he didn't favor it in the past,'' spokeswoman Hilary McLean has explained, ``he is willing to review it in the bigger context.'' McLean has said that Davis would reconsider his opinion sometime in the future, but ``whether that future is now, or in the coming years, it's a little too soon to tell.''

That sounds like political weasel-talk. Expect, in the near future, to long for the day when California's Web surfers had only to worry about viruses, pop-up ads and spam.