You have to give the New Jersey Legislature credit for never giving up in its efforts to persuade Amazon.com to build a distribution center in the state. The body is debating the third bill filed that would create tax exemptions so the online retail giant will build at least one of two planned 1 million-square-foot warehouses here.

This should be a great thing, except for one basic fact of retail life: sales tax. Right now, Amazon doesn’t have to collect sales tax on items sold to New Jersey residents because it doesn’t have a physical location here. (Consumers are supposed to pay them on their tax returns.) Open a warehouse, and the requirement kicks in. Amazon, according to published reports, wanted a 22-month exemption from collecting New Jersey’s 7% sales tax in order to build the warehouses, which could employ as many as 1,500 people.

But any kind of an exemption has been strongly opposed by the state’s retailers and shopping center developers, whose brick-and-mortar facilities must collect the tax – and employ a lot more than 1,500 people. (Full disclosure: As my bio notes below, I’m former employee of the International Council of Shopping Centers, which has been lobbying on Federal and state levels since at least the late 1990s to require Internet retailers to collect sales tax.)

Last month, Amazon announced plans to build a $90 million facility in Delaware, but it is continuing to expand. The new bill provides a 15-month exemption, likely in the hope that Amazon will reconsider the Garden State.

We all know that we need more jobs here. But how about helping the stores, from the largest international chains to the smallest mom-and pops, with their expansions?