As seen on Jurist, a New Jersey court of appeals has ruled that a company with no nexus in New Jersey (as it was previously defined) now is liable for paying New Jersey taxes simply because it ships product into New Jersey.
Seems like a good reason for businesses to simply say "We will not ship to NJ. Please move to a state that isn't as boneheaded as yours is. Thank you for playing."
Although, obviously, it's pretty tough for NJ to really enforce it (after all, with the company completely lacking in NJ nexus, there's no assets for NJ to seize or anything like that).
Also, the company probably should appeal...something about "interstate commerce" being the domain of the federal government, not the states themselves. I remember reading that in a document somewhere once...
Unreal. If that doesn't get overturned on appeal (NJ Supreme or Federal Supreme), talk about opening a Pandora's box - every single state will say "hmm... I have to get in on this".
In the meantime, I think you're right - every company with a national presence should simply say "we're sorry, we can't ship to you in NJ, and we are forbidding our distributors from doing so as well, just to protect us from any liability until you get this situation resolved."