As Louisiana prepares to collect taxes from internet sales, it should be careful not to place too much of a burden on businesses or else increase its risk of getting sued, a representative of a national business advocacy group said.

Pat Reynolds, tax attorney with the Council of State Taxation, or COST, addressed Thursday’s hearing of the Louisiana Sales and Use Tax Commission for Remote Sellers. The commission will recommend policy changes that Louisiana lawmakers will consider during next year’s legislative session.

So how much of a burden is too much? In this summer’s landmark South Dakota v. Wayfair decision, the U.S. Supreme Court didn’t lay down specific standards, but it did warn states that a system more complex or burdensome than South Dakota’s could violate the Constitution’s interstate commerce clause.

“The further a state is from the South Dakota fact pattern, the more litigation risk that state faces,” Reynolds said.

The court cited three factors that showed South Dakota was not interfering with interstate commerce. First, only businesses that sell at least $100,000 in goods or services or engage in 200 or more transactions in the state yearly are liable for sales taxes.

Second, South Dakota doesn’t try to collect sales taxes retroactively.

And third, the state is a member of the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement, which calls for, among other things, a simplified tax rate structure and a single state-level tax collector.

In anticipation of a Wayfair-like Supreme Court decision, Louisiana lawmakers enacted the first two factors, but not the third.

“Two out of three ain’t bad, so we should go forward?” Louisiana Department of Revenue Secretary Kimberly Robinson asked Reynolds.

“I can’t say that,” he responded. “If you’re asking what the minimum is in order to require collection by sellers, that’s a very unanswered question right now. We don’t know.”

COST gives Louisiana’s sales tax administration an “F” on its scorecard, which attempts to quantify the uniformity, efficiency and fairness of each state’s tax system. Louisiana is ranked second-worst in the nation, ahead of only Colorado. The state’s failure to join the SSUTA and its 452 local sales tax jurisdictions are factors in the low grade.