“Gov. Jerry Brown has signed into law California’s tax on Internet sales through affiliate advertising which will immediately cut small-business website revenue 20% to 30%, experts say,” Jan Norman reports for The Orange County Register. “The bill, AB 28X, takes effect immediately. The state Board of Equalization says the tax will raise $200 million a year, but critics claim it will raise nothing because online retailers will end their affiliate programs rather than collect the tax.”
“Amazon has already emailed its termination of its affiliate advertising program with 25,000 websites,” Norman reports.
The letter says, in part:(The bill) specifically imposes the collection of taxes from consumers on sales by online retailers – including but not limited to those referred by California-based marketing affiliates like you – even if those retailers have no physical presence in the state.
We oppose this bill because it is unconstitutional and counterproductive. It is supported by big-box retailers, most of which are based outside California, that seek to harm the affiliate advertising programs of their competitors. Similar legislation in other states has led to job and income losses, and little, if any, new tax revenue. We deeply regret that we must take this action.
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
Just one more reason to hate the Nancy Pelosi- and Barbara Boxer-prototype, bloodsucking liberals who have to screw everyone to pay for their lowlife, pot smoking, godless lifestyles who will next legalize marriage between humans and pink flamingos! If I have to pay tax, I’m not buying from amazon! I hope Amazon moves to a state that appreciates a successful corporation! If California seceded from this nation, conservatism would rule a thousand years. This one state keeps ruining this country one liberal at a time!
What a thoroughly brainwashed-sounding statement! Not to mention bigoted!
As for Amazon, it is in the state of Washington (and NOT in California).
Several states (such as California and New York) are requiring Amazon, Overstock and others who have affiliate progreammes, to collect taxes for orders shipped to them. This is because, although Amazon does NOT have physical presence in the state of California (or New York), many of their affiliates do, and they sell their goods, through Amazon (or Overstock) in their home state. As I said below, it wouldn’t be too difficult to collect taxes only when affiliate and customer are in the same state, and not do it when they’re not, but California (and three years ago, NY) have decided to tax Amazon wholesale.
It’s called “Nexus” and 27 states enforce it.
Just because you can’t see the facts thru your lined blinders doesn’t mean that he isn’t correct. What do u think has trashed our economic lives?
Amazon is based in Seattle, WA. Also, my flamingo fiance and I don’t appreciate your comments.
You can hate Nancy and Barbara all you want but don’t you think CA could really use the money? Lots of site I order from charge local sales tax, which, I assume is paid to my state. I’d like to add that even goods bought thru Apple.com are charged local sales tax as well!
Hardly a “liberals screwing the everyone”.
How exactly does CA pay for the services their citizens require if not partially by collecting sales taxes?
past that… you are woefully misinformed about the most liberal state… probably NY… you know… the one that just approved gay marriage? I’m just sayin’….
“CA could really use the money?” Talk about woefully misinformed. There are any number of drains on the CA economy that the ‘government’ won’t address because it’s not politically correct. Your use of the word ‘citizen’ is intriguing.
Yes, citizen and services are not exclusive. Nor is income received and spent in California or USA. Big loss in tax on that one.
Citizen of USA, taxpayer in SoCal.
There is not a revenue problem, there is a SPENDING problem!
Yup, Edlerado!
It isn’t the cost of services that is the primary problem in California, it the overly generous benefits to government workers, particularly retired workers that is the problem. As the baby boomers retire from government the problem will increase exponentially and soon.
Collect 10 trillion dollars in taxes and politicians will find some way to spend 20 trillion dollars.
All this bullshit about illegal immigrants, or benefits, or pensions, or even corporate tax breaks being the problem is misdirection to keep people from noticing that the assholes in office are the actual problem, and no, electing different assholes won’t help.
If politicians spent tax revenue responsibly(which includes not stealing it, might I add), and refused to pay for overpriced services, no state would be strapped for cash. No teachers, doctors, or firefighters would be underpaid. No infrastructure would be crumbling.
Until they start doing that, which I estimate to be sometime after hell freezes over, no budget crises can possibly be solved through taxes.
10 !!!
You sir are the Man. Also 100% correct
Just one more reason to hate the Sarah Palin- and Michelle Bachman-prototype, bloodsucking conservatives who have to screw everyone to pay for their lowlife, anti-American, uber-superstitious lifestyles who will next legalize marriage between preachers and children! If I have to pay tax, I’m not buying from amazon! I hope Amazon moves to a state that appreciates a successful corporation! If California seceded from this nation, conservatism would rule for a few years until its idiotic fantasies destroyed the world. This one state keeps saving this country one liberal at a time!
There. Fixed it for you.
Best of the day! Thanks! I concur with your fixes to the conservative moron’s rant above. And yes, Liberal = Patriot!
Yeah, but NOT an American Patriot!
He’s a Global Patriot. Who needs borders or birth certificates?
Just one more reason to hate the Microsoft- and Intel-prototype, bloodsucking halfbreeds who have to screw everyone to pay for their lowlife, anti-American, poor quality controlled lifestyles who will next legalize VOIP warrantless recordings between preachers and children! If I have to pay tax, I’m not buying from Microsoft. I hope Microsoft moves to a state that appreciates a mediocrity in a corporation! If California seceded from this nation, Microsoft would rule for a few years until its idiotic fantasies destroyed the world. This one state keeps damning this country one WinTel computer at a time!
There. Fixed it for you.
Liberals, Conservatives! What’s the difference? Until you party sycophants wake up and realize you are all being played for fools this country will never be free.
Come on guys, when did these leeches ever vote down a benefit for themselves?
Wise up, stop being sheep.
Bullseye!
Head of the nail meets the HAMMER
July 4th Celebrations in America, can’t get any more “Patriotic” then that, can you?
Well it seems some Harvard lib panty-waste thinks July 4th parades, celebrating Independence, are for right wingers. I guess for the leftist kooks in America, April 15th is their favorite day, celebrating Dependence!
http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2011/06/30/harvard-july-4th-parades-are-right-wing
Spoken like a public subsidy-sucking libtard. Yup, keep taxin’ and spendin’
Obama gave the corporate jet gifts and you blame Repub’s? LMAO.
Of course, Boxer and Pelosi aren’t in the California legislature, so they had nothing to do with this tax issue, but other than that you’re still wrong.
STFU, moron!
Actually if you live in California you know too well that it’s the illegal aliens that suck all the resources from the state. They are unchecked in California. Devastating. And the state and local cities are broke because of the public employees (teachers,fire and police) benefits have been out of control for decades. Many cities are bankrupt because they have not controlled public employee pensions ,wages and healthcare benefits. It’s the teacher’s union, the fire fighter’s unions in particular that won’t work with officials to reform benefits. It’s the public sector. It’s tax dollars. It’s not the private workplace where you should be able to make what you can it’s tax dollars and that should be controlled tightly. But it’s not.
We aren’t supposed to talk about that GM. But it’s true. How many city governments in CA are near bankruptcy or have been bankrupted while there employees are earning ridiculous retirement benefits. And what about politicians who serve in the upper echelons and get HUGE benefits for life after serving a paltry few years. Paid for by our tax dollars. That explains the spend, spend, spend, tax, tax, tax to a large degree.
“Godless lifestyles” sounds mightily close to the language Islamic extremists use. Could it be that iMaki is a religious extremist that we all should be worried about?
Right…because no one should pay taxes to cover the costs of services. We should cut taxes and maintain or increase deficit spending, especially on the military, because deficits don’t matter. Don’t worry about California approaching bankruptcy. Regulations are inherently evil. And wealthy people love to spend tax cuts on creating good paying jobs with decent benefits for regular American folks. Get over it, the GOP has plenty of faults, just as many as the Dems. You just don’t see it because you don’t want to.
By the way, I do not like Pelosi, either. But blaming everything on her is ludicrous.
I am not in love with taxes, but I am willing to pay for the services that the Government provides as long as those services are structured and administered with some intelligence and attention to quality and efficiency. I believe that those services should include a reasonable level of care for the handicapped, elderly, infirm, and poor, even though that requires extra taxes from me.
Your worldview is so incredibly skewed that it sickens me. I hope that you end up destitute so that you can enjoy all of those “benefits” that you appear to despise.
Corporate taxes and top 9individual tax rates are 1/3rd what they were in 1970. We have a REVENUE problem and a SPENDING problem. We’ve spent $1T in the last 10 years fighting two pointless wars. The DoD spends $700B per year-$1T if you include indirect expenses like veteran’s benefits. Instead of ending the DoD gravy train for defense contractors the Repubs want to gut Medicare and Social Security. That’s moral bankruptcy.
If Amazon would just be a good corporate citizen and collect sales taxes like many others do there would not be a problem. I understand some people feel averse to paying taxes the services we receive still need to be paid for. Not paying fair taxes means others pay more to carry your load.
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Very weird and colossally inconsistent law.
The state of New York has been demanding sales tax on orders shipped to New York state from Amazon for quite some time now (three years), all because of the affiliate programmes. This of course works great for retailers without such programmes, as they don’t have to collect taxes outside of their home state.
The whole concept is a bit unfair, since Amazon only does order fulfillment for those affiliates, and they are the ones offering goods, warehousing and shipping them. The whole thing could easily be modified to collect tax when an affiliate is physically in the same state as the customer.
This way, everyone loses, and the taxing state makes very little tax revenue money.
I collect sales tax (at my local county’s rate) for orders sent to people in-state. If other states want me to collect money for them, then they better get with Congress and figure out a uniform way to collect because I’m not dealing with 7,000 taxing entities in this country.
Well, if you are an affiliate of one of the major online retailers, and your goods/services appear on that retailer’s online store front, they you’ll either have to figure out how to tax orders shipping to that state, or pull out of the affiliate programme altogether.
Yeah, it would be SOOO difficult to have a simple zip-code-based database with a look-up table of taxes. How could anyone even imagine how Amazon could keep track of charging sales tax.
Please. Amazon has no problem keeping track of hundreds of thousand of individual items, getting the right funds to tens of thousands of affiliates, and shipping millions of items a month. You think keeping track of sales tax is going to be that difficult?
Amazon and other Internet retailers were given a tax break to pump online sales. That pump is fully primed. It’s time for Amazon and the rest of start paying their fair share.
Amazon isn’t PAYING any more tax dumb nuts. They are COLLECTING tax from me and you and GIVING it to the state. Sheesh some people’s kids…
Anyone who is remotely rational would realize that Internet retailers ought to have to charge the same sales tax as everyone else. Why should brick and mortar stores have to pay sales tax and online retailers not? This is effectively a subsidy for the online retailers with absolutely no policy basis.
How about because the internet retailers are already paying all the necessary taxes to use the infrastructure they use to do business!
The sales tax was originally created to compensate government for creating and maintaining the infrastructure local businesses used to operate.
So, why should Amazon have to pay a tax to California or Idaho or Mississippi to maintain infrastructure in those states when they don’t operate there? Since the beginning of mail-order retailers, they never collected or paid sales tax on any purchases other than those made in their home own state. The popularity of the internet shouldn’t change that.
This isn’t even remotely any kind of “subsidy” for chrissake.
Finally, someone with common sense.
Retailers are NOT paying sales taxes; consumers are.
The sales tax was created to compensate the government for creating and maintaining the infrastructure that CONSUMERS use in order to purchase retail merchandise and/or services.
Local businesses are already paying the taxes on their own revenue/profit (presumably, for usage of resources provided by the government).
Therefore, Amazon never did, nor will ever pay, tax to Idaho, Mississippi or California. The consumers from those states pay Sears or Home Depot, or Best Buy, when they go into the store to buy something. They should also pay Amazon when that UPS truck uses local public roads to deliver Amazon’s shipment to their homes.
It looks like a standard Federal Sales Tax is needed that is then divided up amongst the States based on sales data from Internet providers.
I’m pretty sure UPS/Fedex pays taxes/registration fees and various other associated taxes (tolls, gas tax, etc.). They are the ones doing the delivery not Amazon.
Amazon doesn’t owe California anything. Explain to me what exact resources that Amazon uses within the state of California that they are not already paying for.
No, Amazon does NOT owe anyone anything, nor are they paying this sales tax. Once again (for the ones in the back row):
Sales tax is paid by the CONSUMER. Not by the retailer.
When you look at an item on Amazon, the price Amazon will charge for it will be (for example) $100 dollars. When you put it in the cart, go to check out, choose your shipping address and state, the receipt will show $100 for the product, $0 for shipping (free ground on orders over $25), plus $8.50 for NY State Tax. This is NOT paid by Amazon; it is paid by YOU, the consumer. Your total will NOT be $100; it will be $108.50 (the full product price, which goes to Amazon, plus $8.50 for NY Sales Tax, which goes to the state of New York).
Exactly the same as when you buy from your local Sears or Best Buy.
PD
you can try, and try, but mouth breathers will still not understand your point. Speak s-l-o-w-l-y, but they’ll still not get it…
Predrag is right. The consumer has to pay, and it shouldn’t matter where he buys an item.
In fact, it is the law in California (and most other states) that you are required to pay sales tax on every item purchased from out of state. You are SUPPOSED to keep track of your purchases and pay up at the end of the year. No one does. That is, except for automobiles. You can’t register a car in California without having to pay either Sales Tax, or Usage Tax if purchased from out of state…
You mean infrastructure like the roads the UPS trucks drive on to deliver Amazon’s orders to your house? Or perhaps the power lines running to your house which allow you to turn on your computer and order from Amazon?
UPS pays those taxes on their profits, gasoline taxes, local business fees, …. This stuff is not complicated folks!
California just shot themselves in the foot.
I hope every other company that has affiliate programs like Amazon do the same. That might teach the CA ‘government’ a thing or two. I always used to specifically order from affiliates in CA to keep the shipping time to a minimum. That’s not even an option now.
I guess I’m not rational. The less tax the better. We are taxed way too much already. Governments at all levels need to learn how to do with less of the peoples money. It’s next to impossible to compile all of the ways we are already taxed. Enough already.
nflux42 you are by far the most rational person I know. Because obviously we don’t want or need police or fire or military protection. Forget having courts to prosecute criminals, we can privatize those and the jails until everyone is incarcerated in the name of maximizing profits. We certainly don’t want kids being educated (better they learn what they need on the streets and become gang members preying on us anyway). We certainly don’t want roads to drive on or mail to be delivered. We obviously don’t need running water, much less unpolluted, clean, drinking or bathing water. We definitely don’t want trash pick-up, we really need to go back to the good ole days when people threw their sh!+ into the streets. Books are only for the wealthy, so let’s close all the libraries. Forget having parks, we should throw massive power plants up in Yellowstone and Yosemite and surround them with smog belching factories (who needs clean air anyway). We should let fishermen overfish our oceans until all marine life is extinct. We should tell pharmaceutical companies sell us drugs that kill us rather than cure us. We should let meatpackers sell us meat crawling with e Coli. We certainly don’t need a currency, let’s just carry sacks on gold on our backs to conduct all of our business. Screw intellectual property, we never filed for a patent or copyright. Forget caring for our old, poor, or sick people. If they’re too old, unskilled, or infirm to work f— ’em.
Taxes suck major ass and we certainly don’t need any of the things they buy. Let’s ban all taxes and starve the beasts that they feed!
However, the cost involved in government services is often much more difficult to control or limit. Services are fine. But, local, city, and state often use these to control votes or influence special interest for the representatives gain. It is a very simplistic view point. However, ask your representative to disclose for audit all monies he/she or he-she / she-he (LOL), has spent and the departments or special interest gifts received.
Point, the government is not a business that has a bottom line to adhere to, rather one of spending. If they run short they raise taxes- fees, surcharges or whatever they call it. They seem to always look to raise the spending every year and claim it will cause loss in services. Never mind all the beau-rats that are never cut or the other five administrative personal that could teach and sit on ther redundant jobs and complain. That is my point. Cut the waste! Government waste. Taxes wasted on beau-rats.
Phew! I can smell that rats! Throw those rat traps out- snag a few!
We are already taxed enough to cover all of those things. Nobody said anything about banning all taxes. But there should be a clear, fair, across-the-board tax collection system for everyone. It shouldn’t be the patchwork loop-hole ridden mess that it is. Is that rational enough for you? Do you always carry your arguments to the limit of absurd?
Upper-income tax rates paid (tax rate, less deductions) is at an all-time low. The result? Middle-class taxes have gone up. I don’t want to pay taxes any more than you do, nflux. The answer is not to cut services, but to raise enough revenue to pay the bills. So let’s return to the conservative tax structure we had in the “good old” days. Under Richard Nixon, the top marginal rate varied between 70 and 75 percent. Under Ronald Reagan, rates went from 70 to 50 percent, before dropping as his term ended to 38 percent. Under Clinton, in the biggest expansion of our lifetimes, top rate was 39.6, the same rate that Obama wanted to go back to (that conservatives railed against).
Oh, during war time, taxes have historically risen, During WWII, marginal tax rates peaked at 94 percent — an NO ONE complained. Yet, we are still mired in two wars started by conservatives, and yet no one from that party will even CONSIDER raising taxes back to the Clinton era, much less Reagan’s or Nixon’s.
Think about it.
Cali is in a tough spot. The rules are set up to make it almost impossible to raise regular taxes and very hard to kill off existing programs.
Whatever your party affiliation, 2012 is going to be a wild ride for elected officials at all levels. Not so much where I live, as we are one of only 4 states running a balanced budget with no tax increase. 😉
Well, as far as current laws are concerned, when you order something by mail, phone or online from out of state, when it arrives, you are required by law to pay sales tax on that to your state tax authorities. I don’t think a single American has ever done that (I don’t even know how I’m supposed to do that; figure out the tax amount and mail a cheque every time I order something online?).
“… you are required by law to pay sales tax on that to your state tax authorities.”
That’s not an absolute for every state. It depends on the state. Such laws are perfect examples of the sort of laws that need to be repealed. Most people either don’t know about them, or just ignore them. They are unenforcible or extremely difficult to do so.
Or were. Technology may change these sort of things as the government (at all levels) becomes more and more intrusive. Sooner or later every transaction will be automatically scrutinized for tax payments.
Look for the Feds to eventually solve the problem by proposing and passing legislation to tax all online sales and distribute the proceeds to the states (while keeping a cut for its efforts).
If we (the citizens) are lucky, it will take the concerned parties years to sort out an equitable (to them) arrangement for dividing the spoils.
I do. At least, I do now. Illinois has really hit the use tax thing big time, and it is only a matter of time before they start going after any residents who don’t pay. And you aren’t required (in this state, or any state I know of) to pay the tax the moment you buy the item. The tax is due the following year (on any items you’ve paid no sales tax on, or paid less sales tax then IL’s), at about the same time income taxes are due. You can pay them all in one shot.
Not sure about all states, but here in MA, there’s a form for USE tax. Fairly easy to do.
I noticed that the politicians are saying that it is not fair to the brick and mortar retail businesses that have to collect sales taxes. What those dummies don’t realize is that most physical retail stores in california and elsewhere do not stock much inventory at all. You are almost forced to go online to get what you need. So not having to pay the sales tax makes it worth while to shop online, and you have to pay shipping usually and definitely if you need to return something. Even though technically we are supposed to pay the sales/use tax, most don’t. So now we have to pay sales tax, shipping and the purchase price. If I go down to worst buy, 9 times out of 10 they will not have what I need. Amazon will. This will backfire on brown the loser.
I am against any law that puts money into the behemoth sloth that is the government & takes it away from the hands of those who earn & produce it.
Agreed!!!
What’s going to happen with Apple’s online store? Isn’t it based in California? Will tax be added to out of state buyers? That would seriously suck.
Apple has physical presence in all states, at this point. They have been collecting sales taxes from all of them ever since they opened retail stores throughout America.
The problem with government is it spends, spends & spends money it doesn’t have. It promises all sorts of entitlements, kickbacks & payouts to select groups that usually do them some kind of favor in return. Then the government tries to balance their books and then, ‘oops’ were short a couple billion. How do we fix that, oh yes there has to be some way we can tax businesses and people more money. Then they collect more tax from us, but do they intend to pay down the debt or even cut things that benefit no one but their own arses? Hell no, they say to themselves damn we’ve collected more money that we can now flush down the sh__er again on some more of our useless and failed ideas.
They tried the same internet tax here in Colorado. They ended up dropping the tax before the end of the year after collecting nothing but trouble and killing jobs.
More job losses for CA. Terrible move there.
All online sales should be subject to taxes in the state theyRe shipped to. This is a blatant tax dodge that has gone on for years. The tax dollars have to come from somewhere. No sales tax on out of state sales shipped to a given state hurt in state retailers both on line and brick and mortar . If you are going to have a state sales tax EVERYONE doing business in the state needs to pay it.
There is a simple and fair solution; make EVERYONE pay their LOCAL sales taxes on ALL ” Internet” purchases, as they are already legally responsible for ( but e-tailers don’t have to collect).
It would allow folks to support ( or move/vote up or down )their local services ( like roads/schools/public safety/etc)
It would also support LOCAL businesses ( including big and small retailers) who actually provide JOBS in your communities.
Or if you’re in Puckerbeush , North Dakota,,at least keep the roads plowed for your local UPS guy;-).
An even better idea: slash government spending and close all the tax dodges for the rich and the large corporations.
I heard this all over news talk radio today, that Amazon was going to have to pay sales taxes. WRONG!
Amazon isn’t paying anything. It’s customers are paying the sales tax, Amazon just collects it and forwards it on to the local authorities.
And therein lies the problem – any online retailer (not just a giant like Amazon) would have to have access to updated local sales tax rates, collect, and then properly remit to the local authority using whatever the local tax authority has authorized for payments/forms. Don’t forget, many counties in this country still are WAY behind the times in using computers.
This is actually quite the business opportunity for a company to provide sales-tax billing, collection and remittance services.
Business opportunity? Wow. Let’s help the government sap every last penny from our paychecks. Good idea.
What services are the States providing to the internet retailer that does not have a physical presence in? No fire protection. no police. No roads (note here that the shipping companies pay taxes to drive on the roads in that state). No Telecom (note here that both the internet user and the ISP’s are paying plenty of taxes here already). No hospital service. etc. etc. etc.
The purpose of taxes is to pay for services that are rendered. Not to just offset overspending.
Exactly. People are turning this into a partisan political rant. All sides are just as guilty no matter what public face they try to put on it.
I hear it regularly…” I don’t want to pay taxes on my purchase, so I’ll just buy online”. Without fail, these are the same people who need knowledgable sales people, and would very upset if their job was “outsourced” or their roads were not plowed.
As several posters have noted, it’s not the companies who are the tax scuffaws, it’s the citizens located in another state. And no, it’s not that complicated. Order something from Apple, and you pay your local state sales taxes.
SUMMARY
Yes, consumers will pay sales taxes and it is fair to collect taxes for the State and it will even the business field for all retailers with consumers in CA.
Amazon has nothing to lose other than raking in big profits. I don’t understand why they are taking out their anger against their affiliates:
“However, another Amazon affiliate, Glenn Richards, an independent recording artist in Orange County (MightyFleissRadio.com), is angry with Amazon and its head Jeff Bezos.
“I think that Amazon.com’s decision to throw their affiliates, (including myself) under the bus is a national disgrace,” Richards said. “Jeff Bezos should be ashamed of his conduct. His bully boy practice and tactics of extinguishing small business in California should be (condemned). Small business has no power…and no hope to confront Internet giants like Amazon.com.””
My company does business in 11 Northeast states. Tomorrow, CT raises the sales tax rate from 6% to 6.35%. Do you know how they notified us? They didn’t. I luckily heard it on the radio. When they audit us, as they do every 3 years (for the preceding 3 years) they would smack us for the uncollected taxes. What a system. Now imagine complying nationally with all the state and local taxes. Full employment for accountants and tax collectors.
I’m guessing that a lot of the folks so in favor of taxes here are accountants, tax lawyers or those hoping to make a buck on the backs of the average joe.
that should have read “lib-ed blinders”
Darned auto correct!