GaryBuss,Every employee of Barnes and Nobles doesn't have to get a sales tax license. They only have one per business. If Witnesses are really wanting to be in the door to door sales business, the most they would have to get is one tax license per congregation. The Society could just sell everything wholesale and simply submit sales tax on their direct sales such as those in their book store.
One of the points of my post was that the WTS would NEVER setup a centralized seller, not at the congregation level or even at the Organization level. The reason is because one of the WTS's greatest legal defenses against lawsuits is that they have no Agency over individual JWs or congregations.
As an example, lets say a dumbass JW damages a homeowner's property while going door-to-door. The homeowner will try to sue the individual JW, the congregation and the WTS. The WTS will then send in lawyers who will deny that the JW was working for the WTS or the congregation. The WTS lawyers will insist that the individual JW was acting on his own. The end result will be that the local congregation and the WTS will be dropped from the case leaving the individual JW solely responsible. Basically the WTS will hang the JW out to dry. I have seen several court cases where this has happened.
Now, lets say the WTS decides to setup congregations as the "seller" who will be paying the taxes. This means that the congregation will be forced to acknowledge that the individual JWs are working for the congregation. Once this happens it will expose the congregation and possibly even the WTS to liability should a dumbass JW manage to get sued while selling the literature.
This is one of the primary reasons the WTS would never under any circumstances decide to sell the literature.
The bottom line is this: If they start selling the literature, they will be forced to accept liability for the actions of JWs. If they continue with the "donation arrangement" they will continue to loose money.
Something tells me they are more interested in protecting their pocket book than spreading the "good news" out. This is why the WTS will die a slow financial death.