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Amazon will end affiliate program in California if new law passes

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Re: Amazon will end affiliate program in California if new law passes

#111

Post by aaronbrethorst »

tomp wrote: post #109
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The books are the same price. Amazon simply tacks on WA sales tax. Here's an example from a purchase I made last month: Amazon.com items (Sold by Amazon.com, LLC) : 1 Apple iPod touch 8 GB (4th... $204.99 1 $204.99 -------------------------------------------------------------------- Item Subtotal: $204.99 Shipping and handling: $3.99 Sales Tax Collected: $19.85 Total: $228.83 Paid by Visa: $228.83 -------------------…

I don't get it now... tedunangst and ojbyrne claim, that I would pay no tax, and you say that I still pay WA tax. So if Callifornia would collect its sales/use tax as well, I would pay tax twice, or no WA tax, or what?

I live in Seattle, WA, and therefore I pay WA state sales tax when I purchase items from Amazon. If I lived in California, I would not pay sales tax.

Re: Amazon will end affiliate program in California if new law passes

#112

Post by dazzla »

Hisoka wrote: post #48

I suspect Amazon secretly wish they could just get rid of their entire affiliate program. If it was so profitable, they wouldn't be getting rid of affiliates left and right. If you think about it, most people who buy thru an Amazon affiliate link probably would've bought it from Amazon anyway (due to its huge brand recognition, dominance in Google, etc). So, when an affiliate refers a sale, sometimes they're losing m…

It's probably simply more cost effective to drop the Affiliates as it is for all the smaller businesses with affiliate programs that are also dropping affiliates.

Re: Amazon will end affiliate program in California if new law passes

#113

Post by cek »

jbooth wrote: post #82
jerf wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say it's "cut and dried" at the same time that you are clearly reaching beyond what the laws say. It is not cut and dried as to what one state may make a resident of a completely different state do. Amazon probably is correct, and forcing Amazon to collect sales tax for your state probably is an overreach. It should be pointed out, since so many people forget this in this discussion, that as a resident of a state…

Uh, who brought in residents of different states? California residents should be paying the California sales tax on things they buy, and the state has a right to make that happen. Nobody's talking about forcing Colorado residents to do anything. I agree that they should find a way to make it a reasonable burden for Amazon to collect that information, but if local retailers have to collect and Amazon doesn't, that see…

"and the state has a right"

Governments do not have rights. Only people have rights. Governments exist to protect the rights of people.

Re: Amazon will end affiliate program in California if new law passes

#114

Post by vailripper »

T-hawk wrote: post #35
pavel_lishin wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love it when everyone works together to make a lose/lose/lose situation happen.

Yup. Politicians and governments are, by and large, oblivious to the fact that laws induce behavioral changes. Like extending unemployment benefits to 99 weeks, then somehow being surprised when the rate increases of people staying on unemployment rather than finding jobs. Or creating a tax credit for low-income families who have children, then being surprised when the low-income birth rate increases. In the politici…

I don't think politicians are nearly as ignorant of the situation as you claim. They know full well what they're doing, however their main objective is to get reelected, so they're going to do things like extend unemployment benefits, because their unemployed constituents will no doubt vote for them come reelection, and the negative consequences are abstract and vague, thus easily dismissed.

Re: Amazon will end affiliate program in California if new law passes

#115

Post by stoney »

_delirium wrote: post #36
pavel_lishin wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love it when everyone works together to make a lose/lose/lose situation happen.

It might be a win for non-Amazon retailers, if the removal of Amazon's affiliate program reduced the total % of internet book-related links that go to Amazon versus other booksellers (keeping that % up is of course one reason Amazon has the program in the first place).

That's assuming that people's choice of bookstore is influenced by links. When I buy a book from a website (or pretty much anything from a website) I always check the price on Amazon. So the only way the affiliate program helps them to sell to me is by encouraging bloggers to write reviews. I'd guess that's true for a lot of people.

Re: Amazon will end affiliate program in California if new law passes

#116

Post by calloc »

_delirium wrote: post #75
reedlaw wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt if Amazon competitors collect sales tax that their prices will remain competitive with Amazon.

Many of them already do, e.g. local booksellers. They might not be price-competitive, but if Amazon provides the linker with no incentive to link Amazon versus linking some other bookstore (say, their favorite local bookstore), some percentage of linkers will (I would guess) defect from choosing to link Amazon. For example, I have a site with some book reviews which currently links the Amazon page for all the books,…

Even if I were making money on Amazon's affiliate program and it got cut I would continue linking to Amazon. For the reader using my site to find information going to an online location where they can purchase the book easily will help them come back to my site.

Especially if I have diverse traffic from around the United States or bigger linking to a retailer that is more likely to ship to my readers will let me keep their eyeballs.

Re: Amazon will end affiliate program in California if new law passes

#117

Post by maxharris »

cheez wrote: post #79
T-hawk wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. Politicians and governments are, by and large, oblivious to the fact that laws induce behavioral changes. Like extending unemployment benefits to 99 weeks, then somehow being surprised when the rate increases of people staying on unemployment rather than finding jobs. Or creating a tax credit for low-income families who have children, then being surprised when the low-income birth rate increases. In the politici…

> Yup. Politicians and governments are, by and large, oblivious to the fact that laws induce behavioral changes. Come on. Politicians are some of the smartest people in the society. Do you really think they are oblivious or do you think they're just looking out for #1?

But are they really looking out for themselves by doing so? A captain that helps sink the ship he's on (and keeps him from drowning) is not "looking out for #1" long-term.

Re: Amazon will end affiliate program in California if new law passes

#118

Post by T-hawk »

cheez wrote: post #79
T-hawk wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. Politicians and governments are, by and large, oblivious to the fact that laws induce behavioral changes. Like extending unemployment benefits to 99 weeks, then somehow being surprised when the rate increases of people staying on unemployment rather than finding jobs. Or creating a tax credit for low-income families who have children, then being surprised when the low-income birth rate increases. In the politici…

> Yup. Politicians and governments are, by and large, oblivious to the fact that laws induce behavioral changes. Come on. Politicians are some of the smartest people in the society. Do you really think they are oblivious or do you think they're just looking out for #1?

The closest answer would be willful obliviousness. Like how voting for war funding means borrowing the money from sometime in the future. Politicians know these consequences on some level, but willfully just push them out of consideration.

Whatever politicians pushed this in California were counting up the tax revenue that would be collected from Amazon. They couldn't have truly been ignorant that Amazon would pull out, but just kind of put the thought aside to push through the tax plan.

edit: I like btilly's point in the child post too.

Re: Amazon will end affiliate program in California if new law passes

#119

Post by calloc »

jbooth wrote: post #82
jerf wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say it's "cut and dried" at the same time that you are clearly reaching beyond what the laws say. It is not cut and dried as to what one state may make a resident of a completely different state do. Amazon probably is correct, and forcing Amazon to collect sales tax for your state probably is an overreach. It should be pointed out, since so many people forget this in this discussion, that as a resident of a state…

Uh, who brought in residents of different states? California residents should be paying the California sales tax on things they buy, and the state has a right to make that happen. Nobody's talking about forcing Colorado residents to do anything. I agree that they should find a way to make it a reasonable burden for Amazon to collect that information, but if local retailers have to collect and Amazon doesn't, that see…

Amazon is located in Washington, as a convenience to the user and to the state Amazon collects tax in accordance with Washington state law if someone ("user A") purchases an item from its site in Washington.

This way "user A" in Washington doesn't owe the state any taxes for that purchase, and doesn't have to declare it on any tax forms.

Now someone in California ("user B") purchases an item from Amazon. Amazon is located in Washington and in accordance with federal law is only required to collect taxes for the state it is located in. So "user B" buys the product and Amazon does NOT collect the California state tax. "user B" now has to put all of his purchases down on his tax forms, and pay the tax for the items he bought.

Amazon had an affiliate program in California. This affiliate program was claimed by the state of California to mean that Amazon was located in California ("to constitute a physical presence"). If that is the case, then Amazon would legally be required to collect tax for "user B"'s purchase and remit it to the state of California.

This would effectively mean that Amazon would now have to file taxes in Washington as well as California. Not a problem for a big corporation you say, imagine then that all 50 states implement said system, Amazon would now be on the hook for filing and paying tax in 50 different states, even-though it technically does not have a physical presence in the state.

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Local retailers have a physical presence in the state, and are by law required to be registered businesses and thus are required to collect state sales tax for the state they are in. If however they also shipped out to other states (lets say they are located in CA, and ship to NJ) they would not have to collect sales tax on the sale when shipping to NJ since that is interstate commerce.

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This may not seem fair, but if any company doing any business with another business or individual out of the state where they have a presence has to keep track and file tax paperwork for each state they do business with it would become unmanageable, especially for smaller businesses where doing tax for one single state is already a big burden, imagine having to do it for all 50 and each one having different laws or different rules regarding taxation.

The states are basically attempting to close a loophole consumers are using, whereby they purchase items out of state so that they don't have to pay taxes on it, and then technically they are breaking the law by never declaring those items.

Re: Amazon will end affiliate program in California if new law passes

#120

Post by calloc »

jbooth wrote: post #89
InclinedPlane wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if an amazon customer living in California buys an item that is fulfilled from Arizona, why should a California sales tax be involved? Why are we suddenly redefining the meaning of local sales tax? Are we now to the point where every state with a local sales tax will also impose tariffs on out-of-state goods? That seems to be the argument here.

Because it was purchased by a Californian from California? I don't get how Arizona's involved at all, Best Buy prob has distribution centers there too, it's not a part of Best Buy's point of sale tax calculations. Again, it's not a tarriff on out-of-state goods, it's assessing the same tax on out-of-state as you do on in-state goods. A non-reverse-tarriff, if you will. Level playing field is all I'm arguing for here,…

Because you are asking a business to file taxes in all 50 states it does business with instead of the consumer that is purchasing the goods who should be declaring them and paying tax on them directly to the state.
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