Amazon agreed to build two Tennessee fulfillment centers similar to this one in Goodyear, Ariz., based on a promise of sales tax exemption. Now , the online retailer is pushing for a change in California law to permit a similar arrangement there.

SAN FRANCISCO — Amazon, the world’s largest online merchant, has an ambitious and far-reaching new agenda: It wants to rewrite tax policy for the Internet era.

Amazon is pushing a voter initiative in California that could eliminate sales tax for virtual sellers with only a modest physical presence in the state. Its move instantly escalated thepany’s long-running battle with many states over collecting sales tax, taking the question directly to voters. And it has sharply intensified its dispute with physical retailers like Wal-Mart Stores and Target, which have vowed to fight the measure.

Some political science and business professors say the conflict could take on the polarizing nature of Proposition 13, a decades-old referendum that limited property tax increases and remains a lightning rod in the state. Political experts say Amazon’s proposed referendum is likely to gather the signatures necessary to appear on the ballot as early as next February.

Nancy F. Koehn, a retail historian at the Harvard Business School, said the initiative highlights the evolution of Internet retailing into a “major highway ofmerce.”

Internet shopping “is no longer a small, out-of-the way quirky tributary of shopping,” she said. “It’s the fastest growing distribution channel in America,” she said.

Koehn, who opposes the idea of exempting online retailers from sales tax, said the stakes were amplified by the fact that state budgets need the hundreds of millions of dollars in potential tax generated by online retailers.

“Do we really want online retailers big and small to walk through a gaping door that says: You don’t have to pay sales tax?” she said.

Amazon argues that such sales tax, even if it raises revenue, ultimately hurts investment and job growth. “Californians deserve a voice and a choice about jobs, investment and the state’s economic future,” Paul Misener, Amazon’s vice president of global public policy, said in a statement about the referendum.

The referendum is a response to a California law, passed last month, that requires Internet retailers to pay sales tax if they have affiliates or subsidiaries in the state. Amazon says the new law penalizespanies that have not traditionally been subject to sales tax.

Big retailers are already organizing and financing opposition. Theyplain that Amazon has an unfair advantage because it does not collect sales tax from shoppers while other retailers must add in the extra cost, which in California starts at 7.25 percent.

The fight echoes similar controversies in other states. In Tennessee, Amazon agreed to build two distributions centers in the Chattanooga area contingent on a state pledge to not require it to collect taxes on intrastate sales. The administration of former Gov. Phil Bredesen agreed; an effort to undo that agreement fell short in the General Assembly and Gov. Bill Haslam has backed the exemption.

In South Carolina, Amazon threatened to close its distribution center after that state’s legislature refused to grant the tax exemption. After lawmakers there reversed course, over the objections of Gov. Nikki Haley, thepany did as well.

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