In the years leading up to the Wayfair ruling, states across the country and Congress tried again and again to come up with a sales-tax regime for online retailers, to no avail. So out-of-state companies had reason to believe that they were under no obligation to collect taxes from California shoppers. In fact, the state enacted a law in 2011 exempting online retailers from having to collect sales taxes here unless they maintained warehouses or showrooms in the state.

Source: Los Angeles Times May 01, 2019 10:07 UTC