I picked up an interesting statistic at a conference two weeks ago. The seminar invited attorneys to focus on electronic commerce as an area that will require more of their attention in coming years. The statistic: Some business experts are valuing electronic commerce to be conducted this year, 1999, at $330 billion. Within two years that number is expected to rise to $1 trillion.

Sounds like we'll be busy for years hammering out the rules of e-commerce. The implications on trade, on consumer regulations and on product liability generally are large and consequential. However, I'm willing to bet that government will feel this change in the way business is conducted more deeply than any other entity in society.

This is because one of the three most widely used forms of tax (or, as George Bush used to call them when he knew we were reading his lips, "revenue enhancers") is the sales tax. It is one of the backbones of state government revenue and is increasingly being turned to by cities and counties, rural and urban, for a little extra support as needs grow and/or people leave.

While the other two taxes, income and property, are tied to individual people and places, respectively, the sales tax always has been a little fuzzy, subjected to value judgments about what constitutes a "sale." For example, the state of Minnesota exempts clothing purchases in addition to food and medicine, which are exempted by a number of states, including my own.

Right now, most internet transactions do not involve the consumer paying a local sales tax. The smart consumer can weigh the cost of shipping and handling incurred when making a purchase over the internet versus the sales tax incurred when the purchase is made at a local retailer.

Result? If you live in a big-sales tax area and costs of shipping are not outrageous, you have a shot at saving some money. Now play that out across the entire economy and you have a two-tiered system of taxation: the digerati make their purchases sales tax free on the web, the folks who are not wired up pay a little extra.

Currently the numbers don't make that much difference. But somehow whenever I talk tax rates informally with someone (inside or outside political circles) the suggestion arises that funding government through one big sales tax would be fairer, would promote saving and would give local governments more control over their share of the pie.

The problem is that in a world where sales taxes did all the heavy lifting, electronic consumers could skirt big chunks of local taxation by surfing the net and leaving their counterparts in the cash-register economy in the dirt. That would mean continued Wal-Martization of the retail landscape as well as a permanent income gap between online consumers and everyone else. If you can't afford a computer and internet access, life will be just a bit more expensive for you.

But we who are online like that idea, right?

John Hedgecoth isn't fully wired, but he's getting there.