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Merrick, NY—The law of unintended consequences may be ready to strike again, this time with small businesses in its crosshairs.

For a long time, brick-and-mortar retailers, as well as the National Retail Federation, have championed the idea of an Internet sales tax as a way of leveling the playing field with online retailers. In theory, it makes sense—customers won’t have as much incentive to bypass local stores to save online, and states will collect some much-needed revenue—but in reality the law may make small retailers want to be very careful of what they wish for. 

In a post on allbusiness.com, author Matthew Brennan says talk of an Internet sales tax (called the Marketplace Fairness Act) is surfacing without an exemption for small businesses whose revenues are under $1 million. The Senate passed the MFA last summer; now discussions shift to the House, according to The Hill.com.

Earlier discussions of the tax had proposed the exemption for businesses under $1 million. For those businesses, Brennan writes, the cost of compliance may be too burdensome to make e-commerce worthwhile, effectively cutting them out of the online marketplace altogether—not exactly fair. Compliance software could cost tens of thousands of dollars to first install, and even more to maintain—but trying to comply with 10,000 tax codes across the nation would be impossible to do manually.

Top image: PCWorld.com