The California Legislature cannot wait to tax Amazon Affiliates. They approved a bill this week that would tax Amazon Affiliates on their sales in California. The legislature believes that this will generate 370 million dollars for the state budget that is constantly late and underfunded. However in other states where similar laws as this have went through companies like Amazon and Overstock.com have simply severed ties with their affiliates located in those states. So that $370 million will simply not appear on California’s books. Because that money will simply be made by affiliates in other states. So how many affiliates does Amazon have in California? That question hasn’t been answered but some say thousands. It’s not as if California doesn’t get it’s cut of these affiliates money because after they make it from amazon where do you think they spend it? Of course they spend it in California to help the California taxpayers and Legislature. But if they are all closed down they will all be out of business and not earning money from Amazon.com to be taxed and spent in California. Who will be the winner in this battle of taxing the affiliates? I believe that the legislature will eventually tax amazon and they will sever ties with all affiliates in the state much like they have in every other state that’s tried this. So someone has to win in this right, of course they do. Who will win is the last state that doesn’t tax affiliates will have all the affiliates with all the affiliate income that they earn being spent in their state. So do we want to be one of the states that get rid of all of our affiliates or do we want to be the last state that has affiliates?
Now I have to reveal that I have a vested interest in this. I am an affiliate for Amazon.com. Now if this happens don’t worry I won’t starve but the state will not be getting the money they are expecting to get now nor will they be getting the taxes off the money that the affiliates earn and spend in the state of California everyday.
Filed under: money, people, technology, things, Uncategorized Tagged: | affiliate sales, affiliate sales tax, Amazon Affiliate, Amazon tax, Amazon.com, California Amazon tax, California budget, California Legislature, Overstock.com, taxing Amazon affiliates
[...] are losing all the taxes that myself and all the other affiliates earn every year. As I mentioned here. If it was just me it would be one thing but there are something like 10,000 affiliates in [...]