States all over the country are scrambling to make budgets happen and a quick look through the headlines for any state budget proposal will show you that all are talking about taxes and finding ways to make up for the shortfall in taxable revenue that is being generated. One of the more controversial ways that some states are proposing to generate more state taxes is by going online. Specifically states are starting to propose new laws to go after e-commerce companies that have sales happening across state lines where they have no physical presence in the state and therefore are not required to pay the state taxes.
So how are these new tax laws being written you may be wondering? Well it turns out that affiliate networkers are the target of these new taxes. Last year the state of NY went ahead with such a tax and only one major online retailer took action which was Overstock.com. They stopped doing business with affiliates that reside in the state of NY.
Well now similar laws are being proposed in the states of RI and NC and this time it’s Amazon.com that is not going to go along with this new e-commerce tax. They have unceremoniously terminated the accounts of all affiliates in both of those states. Amazon notified their affiliates in those states that the possibility of this may be happening and this week Amazon pulled the trigger as both states have proposed e-commerce tax laws in their upcoming budgets.
Amazon decided that once was enough for going down this road as they are still paying the state taxes to continue doing business with NY affiliates. They are however send a clear message that they do not agree with the way states are going after the e-commerce business and have stated that they are all for a uniform e-commerce tax but not the way these states are shoe horning these new laws in as quick band-aids to make up for their tax revenue shortfalls.
So the irony here of course is that if these new e-commerce tax laws do go into effect for these states that it may actually cost them more money as they loose all the affiliates that were generating an income and now may have to file for unemployment help because a source of income has been cut off for these people thanks to the new tax laws.
One Trackback
[...] Read The Latest Taxes BlogShot>>>New E-Commerce State Taxes Cutting Affiliates Out [...]