Amazon Cuts Off North Carolina Affiliates

Amazon.com has reportedly cut off all affiliates in North Carolina as a preemptive response to the sales tax change being pushed through the state legislature. The Seattle-based online retailer warned affiliates last week that such a move might be necessary, but the early shutoff seems to be a move in hopes of swaying opinion on the proposed legislation. "Local affiliates say they were 'blind-sided' by the company's action. 'I got this e-mail at 4:30 this morning,' said James Barrett, a technology consultant from Winston-Salem. 'It wasn't saying your account will be shut down. It said it is shut down. That just blew me up right there.' Barrett said that he is frustrated at lawmakers for considering the tax, but equally aggravated with Amazon. 'They're trying to tick off all their associates and get them to call down to Raleigh,' Barrett said. 'I think that is pretty tacky. That's not the way to use people who are referring business to your business.'"

Comments

That's the real meaning of "voting with your feet"

[vivaoporto]

That's the real meaning of "voting with your feet". There is an unjust law, or even a just one that Amazon doesn't agree, and they don't want to be subjected to it, so they move out of the state.

Actually, I think it's a great tactic

[infinite9]

... even if it is a bit assholeish. It sends a loud and clear message to the NC government that the legislation will hurt local businesses.

Re:Actually, I think it's a great tactic

[elloGov]

I agree. This is admirable response by Amazon. Even legal thievery has its limits. NC is laying claims beyond their jurisdiction in my opinion.

Re:Actually, I think it's a great tactic

[scorp1us]

We're seeing more and more of this retaliation.

Green Day recently declined to make a censored version of their album to meet Wal*Mart's demands. Wal*Mart thought that they could strong-arm anyone into making an non-explicit version. But lost out, because the album is doing quitewellthankyouverymuch.

On a more historical note, the founders of this great nation realized that smuggling was a good thing. As taxes became oppressive, the more reason there was for smuggling. They saw it as a great balancing factor. They state had to choose to keep the taxes low, or let a larger amount go untaxed, in addition to a drop in sales, like they are seeing with the new tobacco taxes.

The current government is advantaged because of electronic record keeping, where some SQL statement can spot discrepancies for additional investigation.

But there is no reason why the governments should have license to grow when its supporting economy just dropped 20%. To argue otherwise is to argue that you can tax a nation into prosperity, or that you can lift yourself up by your boot straps.

I applaud Amazon for having gravitas. I also wish the best for those affiliates in NC. Hopefully they will speak up and fix the taxation, or NC will learn to go without.

Re:Actually, I think it's a great tactic

[lewp]

I agree. Amazon is losing sales on this too, so it's not like they're just screwing the little guy. They're putting their money where their mouth is.

Re:Actually, I think it's a great tactic

[phantomfive]

The problem is our leaders don't have enough affairs. North Carolina should have taken a page from their neighbors to the South, where the governor was so *ahem* happy (satisfied?) that he didn't want any more money from anybody. This is mainly a problem of the normal monogamous sanctified relationship.

Clinton balanced the budget too.

Re:Actually, I think it's a great tactic

[Greyfox]

Rumor has it Florida at one point attempted to pass a law stating that companies operating in the state would be taxed on their entire earnings rather than just in-state earnings. This discussion was promptly shelved when IBM told them in no uncertain terms that it would leave the state and take its several thousand jobs elsewhere.

Re:Actually, I think it's a great tactic

[samweber]

Okay, currently in NC businesses which sell directly to NC residents collect sales tax, but NC businesses which sell to NC residents via Amazon don't. Whether or not you agree with NC's proposal, there are more factors here which I don't think you've considered.

the founders of this great nation realized that smuggling was a good thing

To the contrary, the United States was set up as a nation of laws and with the assumption that there would be taxes. There's nothing that excuses smugglers from the legal system.

But there is no reason why the governments should have license to grow when its supporting economy just dropped 20%.

Firstly, the proposed change in no way "grows" the government. It is simply an additional revenue stream. Secondly, since as you say the economy has dropped 20%, that means that NC is collecting about 20% less revenue. I highly doubt that this proposal will even come close to making up for this, so in total NC's revenue will be shrinking, not growing.

To argue otherwise is to argue that you can tax a nation into prosperity, or that you can lift yourself up by your boot straps.

Actually, there are good reasons why you want to do this.

First of all, the state's expenditures naturally increase during a recession. Why? Firstly, the basic costs of maintaining infrastructure do not decrease drastically: potholes in highways still need to be fixed, electric poles which fall during a storm need to be repaired, etc.

Secondly, consider that the 20% drop in the economy is not applied evenly. This year nearly 50% of college graduates didn't manage to find jobs. That is a lot of talent that is being wasted. Also, for example, some friends of mine used to be a two-income family until, in one week, one was laid off and the other had a 30% pay cut. That's a family that is now trying to live on one-third of their usual income, but their mortgage payments aren't any lower. As a result there is a lot of capable people who suddenly find themselves in deep financial trouble, if not homeless.

Because of this, the state's unemployment insurance program, its support for working families who aren't able to afford enough food for their children, homeless shelters, etc experience a large increase in the number of applicants. So, the costs of these programs rise, at the exact time that revenue falls.

What is the state to do? Not only would it be immoral to let people starve to death, it is foolish: dead people will never get jobs and help the economy in the future. You want all these talented people to be earning money, not dying in a tent city.

Instead, you DO want to have new government programs to help the economy. Take some of those unemployed civil engineering graduates and have them design better infrastructure for the cities, and then hire other unemployed people to build it. Not only do you get to enjoy the benefits in the future, but the newly employed people then spend their pay at local shops and stores, which means that those businesses have more sales, which means that they no longer have to lay people off or go bankrupt. This will improve the economy, and once it has recovered any loans that had to be made can be paid off. This just makes sense, and has worked before.

Re:Actually, I think it's a great tactic

[BitZtream]

What message is that?

If you don't let us get by without paying taxes we're going to take our toys and go home!

Is that the message you're referring to?

Amazon doesn't have the guts to stop selling to NC itself, that would cost them too much money, they just want to hurt the little guys. You know, the affiliates they use as cannon fodder on a regular basis?

Hopefully NC will amend the law to require anyone shipping a product into the state to collect sales tax on the sale and distributed it to the state. Of course Amazon will pull their typically big bully bullshit and point out their lack of presence in NC. But this will just go to serve the point, Amazon is just throwing their weight around.

Why should they get out of paying taxes for business done in the state, yet Walmart has to?

The state is supposed to make the companies that employee people in its state and provide the money that Amazon is taking, but let Amazon not contribute anything back?

It doesn't take a math major to figure out if you are sucking all the money out of an area and not putting anything back that it won't last forever.

Re:Actually, I think it's a great tactic

[BitZtream]

Green Day wouldn't have done that before iTunes. Don't think of them as all bad ass for standing up to the man, they didn't stand up to the man, the stood up to the guy who got ran over by the man.

Re:Actually, I think it's a great tactic

[BitZtream]

Not just screwing the little guy? Are you kidding?

What do you think the ratio of affiliate sales is to direct sales for Amazon? Its not like the total affiliate program is even their prime source of revenue, one state in one country probably won't even show up on the books in any noticable way.

Don't see them stopping their own sales in NC do you? I wonder why that is, if they feel so strongly about it.

Re:Actually, I think it's a great tactic

[Anonymous Coward]

That'd be a great law. Imagine a company that operated in all 50 states, and all 50 states having that law, charging 2% taxes each. Maybe IBM just pointed out their folly.

Re:Actually, I think it's a great tactic

[BitZtream]

So just curious, as more and more companies do like Amazon and more and more purchases are made from out of state due to this sort of web service ...

What do you think states should do to deal with the lost revenue.

Amazon seems to have no problem taking money from people in North Carolina. I don't see them paying their own state any taxes on those sales.

Its not like they don't just pass sales tax along to the customer like every other business ANYWAY.

Its not like Amazon itself is paying the taxes to NC.

Don't feed me some bullshit about how their system doesn't support it and how expensive it would be to add, if QuickBooks can deal with mutlistate taxes its your own damn fault for buying/creating something for a company the size of Amazon that can deal with global accounting.

So when your state ends up with no instate businesses, so theres no more sales tax, and suddenly you have no money to fund all the shit that you take advantage of on a daily basis, then what? When you start losing city services that these taxes subsidize ... now what?

Its nice to rant and rave about how evil taxes are, but you're tone will change the instant you lose some precious amenity that you probably think of as a god given right.

Re:Actually, I think it's a great tactic

[interkin3tic]

But there is no reason why the governments should have license to grow when its supporting economy just dropped 20%. To argue otherwise is to argue that you can tax a nation into prosperity, or that you can lift yourself up by your boot straps.

Without knowing the specifics of NC's budget, I'd say you're underestimating how inefficient the process is. Think of a big huge titanic-like ship, it can't turn on a dime. The government does have a reason to introduce new taxes when the economy bottoms out, if only because they tend to overspend when the economy is bad, and much moreso when it's good. The economy dropped quickly compared to their reaction time, as it always has and always will. They didn't learn from history as they never have and never will. Existing revenue undoubtedly dropped with the economy, but the programs they've set up obviously don't.

It's not an efficient process, but I'd argue they should find ways of transitioning rather than just "Hey free downtown health clinic, the economy tanked yesterday, and so we're not going to get as much taxes, so we can't fund you. Go home. Dude with the stab wound, get out of here. Now." Or "repaving of this highway postponed indefinitely because of the economy. Continue taking the 20 mile detour to work everyday until either the economy picks up again or you lose your job, whichever comes first."

You want these programs to be let down gently if they have to go in other words, and that takes tax money the government suddenly doesn't have.

It could also be solved with foresight, careful planning, innovation, and sacrifice, but we don't live in a world where legislators or politicians have those qualities.

Re:Actually, I think it's a great tactic

[roc97007]

> What is the state to do?

Well, one thing they could do is create rainy-day funds during times of prosperity instead of growing the government a corresponding amount. Some states do this, but I think most don't bother, because a big lump of cash sitting there is too much of a temptation to spend. And investing the rainy day funds raises the risk of being wiped out in the same downturn that the funds were for.

Regarding maintaining roads, at least in my state that's the first thing they cut out of the budget in a downturn. Speaking as someone who recently had a $3,000 insurance claim for damage done to my vehicle by a really deep pothole downtown.

But back to the question above, "what is the state to do?", it is a conundrum, because increased taxes in a downturn invariably stalls recovery, putting the government in an unwelcome position -- charity now, or prosperity later? The additional cost of the taxes to pay John Q. Unemployed's extended unemployment benefits may have been the money the company needed to hire him. Or worse, it may be the impetus for the company to move to a more business-friendly state, causing the jobs to disappear forever.

Re:Actually, I think it's a great tactic

[xmundt]

Actually...sales taxes collected on Internet Sales are a record keeping nightmare, and would, at least, cause a huge jump in costs of online goods.
          Apparently you are unaware of the fact that Sales taxes are Not uniform through the state. As a matter of fact, they vary on a county and even CITY basis. Enacting requirements for companies to collect and forward sales taxes to the appropriate authorities for interstate sales could require a company to send out thousands of checks and two or more pages of paperwork PER CHECK every month.
          Another factor is that this will not only affect internet sales. It will, in fact, hit EVERY mail-order seller...and every one of them will pass those costs along to you, the consumer.
          regards
          dave mundt

Re:Actually, I think it's a great tactic

[Anonymous Coward]

NC businesses which sell to NC residents via Amazon don't [collect sales tax].

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=468512

Re:Actually, I think it's a great tactic

[bigngamer92]

It reminds me of that article about Microsoft planning to leave the country if more corporate taxes are instated. Of course Microsoft is already doing so and everyone is giving a resounding "meh". Maybe if they chose to not ship Windows 7 to the US unless Corporate taxes went down.

Of course this is Amazon which is an OK company to root for despite the kindle. And it is outside NC's jurisdiction of taxation. So what happens if there is a federal tax on the internet?

Re:Actually, I think it's a great tactic

[scorp1us]

The problem with your logic, is that the government grows when things are good (not because more government makes things better) but then it grows when the economy goes down as part of "stimulus". Then when things to finally get good, well see my first statement.

Every person receiving government money moves the 80% of that burden from themselves (paying 20% in their own taxes) and puts it on the remaining population, which has just lost a tax revenue person. As the government gets bigger, fewer are left to pay the tax bill, so it gets distributed among a smaller and smaller population.

Re:Actually, I think it's a great tactic

[nacturation]

They should have made a censored version, only replacing every swear word with the word "walmart". "Walmart off and die, motherwalmart!"

Re:Actually, I think it's a great tactic

[Grishnakh]

Clinton balanced the budget too.

True, but he also unwittingly created our current financial crisis and recession by signing the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act shortly before he left office.

And he only balanced the budget because he presided during a big economic boom. He was in the right place at the right time.

Don't get me wrong, he wasn't a completely horrible president (like the guy that came after him, or like Lyndon B. Johnson or Andrew Jackson), but he wasn't anything special either.

Re:Actually, I think it's a great tactic

[Grishnakh]

So when your state ends up with no instate businesses, so theres no more sales tax, and suddenly you have no money to fund all the shit that you take advantage of on a daily basis, then what? When you start losing city services that these taxes subsidize ... now what?

Don't be stupid. You think people are going to start buying all their groceries online, and stop buying clothes at the mall and get them on the internet? We've had groceries and clothes sold on the internet for over a decade now, and there's certainly no sign that this is any kind of serious threat to traditional brick-and-mortar stores. Frozen food and milk and fresh fruits and vegetables simply can't be shipped across the country by Fedex in a box, and people like to try on clothes before they buy them. People also like to eat out a lot at restaurants. You think everyone's going to stop going out and just buy food from Amazon and eat at home all the time?

Meanwhile, things the internet is actually very popular for, like electronics and computer hardware, are still sold with good success by retailers like Best Buy. Apparently there's still a lot of people that need some zit-faced 20-year-old moron to tell them which massively overpriced Monster cables they need for their HDTV, and have no problem buying them at their local Best Buy, even though they could get something just as good on the internet for a fraction of the price, with no tax.

Brick and mortar stores aren't going anywhere. Some of the weaker ones are going under, and some things are facing serious threats from online sales. Lots of other things aren't. I don't know about you, but when I need some electrical or plumbing items, or paint, for a DIY house project, I don't get on the internet just to avoid sales tax. I drive to my local Lowe's and buy it.

Maybe these stupid states should try cutting costs. People adversely affected by the economy don't have the option to just steal money from someone to make up for their "revenue shortfall"; they have to cut their expenses and live within their means. Governments need to do the same. If they were smart, they would have saved some money during the boom times in anticipation of a recession.

Re:Actually, I think it's a great tactic

[phantomfive]

No way, you can bash Bush all you want, but the fact is, if he'd had an affair, he would've totally balanced the budget. There's the statistical correlation to prove it. The economy has nothing to do with it.

Not to mention those 'blue dogs' in congress? Yeah. You know why they call them dogs? Government would be so much more interesting if we paid attention to what really matters.

Re:Actually, I think it's a great tactic

[Peter La Casse]

What is the state to do?

Minimize the impact of fluctuations in revenue by minimizing government services and expenditures.

Solve the problem of bureaucracy ("the bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy") and apply the fix to every state and local government.

The state should be fiscally prudent so that it is able to borrow money to make it through temporary tough times. Then, since it is fiscally prudent, it will be able to pay that debt off during good times.

Obviously no state government is going to do those things, but that's a better arrangement than what we have now (spending higher than revenues all the time.)

Re:Actually, I think it's a great tactic

[demonlapin]

Wal-Mart has stores that presumably benefit from police, fire, and emergency medical services. Those stores occupy space which is actually in North Carolina, and can be sold to other people interested in owning a bit of North Carolina should the land become more valuable than a Wal-Mart. IOW, they actually do business in North Carolina. I don't buy soft drinks, potato chips, or fresh meat and cheese off Amazon - I buy them at my local grocery store, because they are heavy or perishable goods that cost a fortune to ship in anything other than massive quantities - and because I like to look at what I'm buying. For books and music, Amazon is often less expensive, but my local bookstore gives me a book right now AND lets me try before I buy!

So why does Amazon owe a nickel to North Carolina? Just because individual North Carolinians like their stuff? The only part of the Amazon food chain that costs NC a penny is delivery - and UPS, FedEx, and DHL all have physical presences and pay taxes.

Re:Actually, I think it's a great tactic

[Anonymous Coward]

State, county, town/city, and sometimes also by product... and even by date. Thousands of permutations of these rules in the nation, and each location changes its rules on its own schedule - you can't just update the big database once and forget about it, no, there'll be several changes every day.

Re:Actually, I think it's a great tactic

[drinkypoo]

What do you think states should do to deal with the lost revenue.

Provide less services.

Its not like they don't just pass sales tax along to the customer like every other business ANYWAY.

They will have less customers if they have to charge sales tax. I know I go looking for another etailer if there's a sales tax charge, just to see if I can save a dollar or two.

So when your state ends up with no instate businesses, so theres no more sales tax, and suddenly you have no money to fund all the shit that you take advantage of on a daily basis, then what? When you start losing city services that these taxes subsidize ... now what?

Hallelujah! I don't know about anywhere in NC, but in my area the government is involved in way too much, and should fuck off immediately.

Its nice to rant and rave about how evil taxes are, but you're tone will change the instant you lose some precious amenity that you probably think of as a god given right.

All I care about is 9-1-1, and then really only for fire. The police can't come in time to help you when you REALLY need help, anyway; I already have all the help I can use right here *pat pat*

For example, the roads where I live (Lake County, CA) are a complete scam; they've been "maintained" by the same group of companies for years now, and every time they work on the roads they get lumpier, no joke. The biggest intersection in Lakeport, CA might as well be made out of speed bumps. It's a Freeway Intersection. Pathetic.

And let's talk about one of the most common examples: The school system is not a system of education but one of indoctrination; I actually consider public school child abuse and object to being charged for it.

I would like to see a lot less services "provided". For instance, it could be argued that building permits are unconstitutional.

Re:Actually, I think it's a great tactic

[cloudmaster]

I think you've confused "Florida" with "the USA", since IBM's moved a tremendous chunk of their workorce over to southern Asia.

Re:Actually, I think it's a great tactic

[bkpark]

To the contrary, the United States was set up as a nation of laws and with the assumption that there would be taxes. There's nothing that excuses smugglers from the legal system.

And ignore the Boston tea party? Ignore all the opposition to the stamp act? Ignore all the sentiments that actually brought this nation into existence?

You are right that United States was set up as a nation of law with one supreme law of the land, the Constitution—but that supreme law was meant to restrain the government from hurting her people, not the other way around. In fact, if we undo a lot of damages to the constitution done in the last century, we shouldn't even have income tax—and at least around the time when they passed the 16th amendment, people felt strongly enough about the constitution that they recognized, under the existing constitution, the federal government had absolutely no right to tax personal (or corporate) income—just as NC has no right to tax an entity incorporated in the state of Washington (if they want to tax NC affiliates selling to NC buyers, well, do that—they have no authority to drag in Amazon or anyone else not in the state). These days we just "reinterpret" the Constitution and let the federal government ban whatever they want and regulate whatever they want, whether they are authorized by the Constitution or not (by the 10th amendment, if it's not in the Constitution, then the federal government cannot do it).

United States is definitely an anti-tax, anti-welfare-state nation (at least it was until the turn of last century). The "rule of law" that we are so fond of is meant as a restraint on those in power, not an iron boot upon the faces of the citizens at large (to which every private entrepreneur belongs, regardless of how rich he is).

They Had Warning

[eldavojohn]

Local affiliates say they were "blind-sided" by the company's action.

I'm sorry, sir, I normally restrict myself to civil language but you are so full of shit.

I don't even live in North Carolina and recalled reading about 'warning' letters sent to you. Maybe you should open up your e-mails from June 17-18:

We regret to inform you that the North Carolina state legislature (the General Assembly) appears ready to enact an unconstitutional tax collection scheme that would leave Amazon.com little choice but to end its relationships with North Carolina-based Associates. You are receiving this e-mail because our records indicate that you are an Amazon Associate and resident of North Carolina.

Please note that this is not an immediate termination notice and you are still a valued participant in the Associates Program. All referral fees earned on qualified traffic will continue to be paid as planned.

But because the new law is drafted to go into effect once enacted -- which could happen in the next two weeks -- we will have to terminate the participation of all North Carolina residents in the Amazon Associates program on or before that same day. After the termination day, we will no longer pay any referral fees for customers referred to Amazon.com or Endless.com nor will we accept new applications for the Associates program from North Carolina residents.

The unfortunate consequences of this legislation on North Carolina residents like you were explained in detail to key senators and representatives in Raleigh, including the leadership of the Senate, House, and both chambers' finance committees. Other states, including Maryland, Minnesota, and Tennessee, considered nearly identical schemes, but rejected these proposals largely because of the adverse impact on their states' residents.

The North Carolina General Assembly's website is www.ncleg.net and additional information may be obtained from the Performance Marketing Alliance at www.performancemarketingalliance.com. We thank you for being part of the Amazon Associates program, and we will apprise you of the General Assembly's action on this matter.

Sincerely,
Amazon.com

You were warned! Tell us, James Barrett, how many letters did you sent to your representatives demanding they strike down this unconstitutional tax?

Yes, it came early. But you were warned. Unwittingly operating for one day could set Amazon back thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars. They tried blocking it with litigation in New York and they lost. Don't get made at them for playing it safe, you have no one to blame but your elected officials.

Re:They Had Warning

[T Murphy]

North Carolina state legislature (the General Assembly) appears ready to enact an unconstitutional tax collection scheme

For those who don't want to RTFA:

The tax provision that Amazon objects to would apply sales tax to purchases made through such click through transactions from Web sites run by affiliates based in North Carolina.

Re:They Had Warning

[lalena]

So if the user clicks through an affiliate to purchase an item, but that affiliate is no longer paid by Amazon, then is it taxed? Amazon is terminiating the affiliate accounts & future payments, but if an affiliate leaves the Amazon links up on their page I assume Amazon won't give them a 404 error.

Re:They Had Warning

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course it isn't taxed. Amazon has no presence in NC after the cut off. Who links to them is irrelevant. It only matters if they have business partners there.

Re:They Had Warning

[[WC]DrEvil]

The key is "affiliates based in North Carolina."

By terminating their relationship with North Carolina affiliates, the rule no longer applies as I understand it.

Re:They Had Warning

[Anonymous Coward]

I imagine that the legal theory is that because the affiliates are paid for their referrals, they are acting as agents, and so are in effect something like a franchisee.

Re:They Had Warning

[Dare nMc]

no money, no business relationship, then not a affiliate, thus no tax. is my guess. Then the referral link is just the same as a blog saying "hey this is a cool book" with a url to amazon with some now meaningless characters embedded in the link.
As the other posts say, they had time to setup a LLC in Delaware to make a nice transition without loss.

Re:They Had Warning

[CodeBuster]

James Barrett, how many letters did you sent to your representatives demanding they strike down this unconstitutional tax?

The tax would be applied to business affiliates operating within the State of North Carolina so it is probably not unconstitutional as long as the goods are not being shipped to somewhere outside of North Carolina which would make it an inter-state commerce issue and within the domain of the Federal Government. Now, the tax probably is a bad idea, especially during a recession, but that is another matter.

blindsided?

[Red Flayer]

1. If any of these affiliates were blindsided, it is because they didn't read the notice they were given last week. Of course, a single week's notice is too short anyway...

2. Time for the referral businesses in NC to relocate. Or close up shop. We'd be happy to have them (and their income & property tax revenues) here in NJ.

Of course, now it's only a matter of time before most states have similar laws. Then it'll be time for these businesses to relocate to the Cayman Islands.

Re:blindsided?

[vertinox]

2. Time for the referral businesses in NC to relocate. Or close up shop. We'd be happy to have them (and their income & property tax revenues) here in NJ.

Or they could setup a proxy LLC in Delaware through a registered agent.

Re:blindsided?

[Kohath]

Just think how much nicer NJ would be if people were valued for their humanity rather than just as sources of "income & property tax revenues". If these people needed a hint to avoid New Jersey, your post certainly provided it. Of course, they could have looked around to find that New Jersey has the worst business climate of any state in the US.

My state (Minnesota) isn't very good either, but it beats New Jersey. I hope to move to an even better state soon.

Re:blindsided?

[LotsOfPhil]

The only thing that would make New Jersey nicer is less New Jerseyans.

Re:blindsided?

[timepilot]

Did you read the heartland.org article? It doesn't say that "New Jersey has the worst business climate," it says that "New Jersey has the worst business TAX climate."

Big difference. This statement is based primarily on the breadth of the sales tax base.

NJ doesn't tax toilet paper, food, or clothing. This places more of a tax burden on people buying TVs and cars, and less on people buying things like cereal for their kids. If that means NJ has a bad business tax climate, so what?

Honestly, I'd rather pay 7% for my TV knowing that people who can't afford TVs didn't have to shell out more to feed their kids so that my TV could be cheaper.

Re:blindsided?

[need4mospd]

How much notice did the NC legislators give Amazon? That would probably clue you in to why they only gave a one week notice. If Amazon didn't know about it beforehand, how could they possibly give a notice any sooner? Also, just because the government proposed a law, doesn't mean it's likely to pass. Maybe the lawyers determined they should send the letter out when they knew the law was more likely to pass.

I don't feel like RTFA(sue me) so sorry if that was already covered.

Re:blindsided?

[Red Flayer]

Which wouldn't help them, since they have a physical presence in NC and thus must pay NC sales tax.

There are many many thousands of corporations registered in DE for business purposes, but don't think for a second that those corporations are not required to file and pay sales taxes in the states where they have a physical presence.

And don't try to evade sales taxes that way either -- you'll either get nailed and have to pay fines and interest (or even get prosecuted for willful tax evasion), or at the very minimum you're a drain on state resources because you don't contribute your fair share (which I know is optimistic on my part, to think that people would pay taxes out of some moral reason, instead of just fear of reprisal).

Re:blindsided?

[cayenne8]

"Honestly, I'd rather pay 7% for my TV knowing that people who can't afford TVs didn't have to shell out more to feed their kids so that my TV could be cheaper."

Trouble is...most of those people will still buy TV's first, and then complain they can't feel their kids.

Re:blindsided?

[couchslug]

[quote]
2. Time for the referral businesses in NC to relocate. Or close up shop. We'd be happy to have them (and their income & property tax revenues) here in NJ.
[/quote]

Given the brutal property and income tax situation in New Jersey, they'd be better off moving a few miles to South Carolina.

I'm from New Jersey, lived in both Carolinas, and retired in SC so I get to keep more of my income. :)

Re:blindsided?

[Red Flayer]

Just think how much nicer NJ would be if people were valued for their humanity rather than just as sources of "income & property tax revenues".

Just how could I value these people for their humanity, when I have no idea if they are selfish twats or if they are decent human beings? The only thing I can judge them on, from the information available to me, is their monetary value to the people who live in NJ. They could be rapists or worse, for all we know.

And as for NJ having a bad business climate... surely that's the reason so many businesses have moved to NJ, despite our tax climate being bad for decades?

We have a bad tax climate for business. On the other hand, we have great business climate in other areas, such as: education system, workforce quality, proximity to NY, proximity to ports, culture, etc.

But go ahead, harp on NJ. The more people that talk negatively about it, the better my chances of having beautiful rural NJ never overrun by midwestern suburban transplants.

Re:blindsided?

[Vohar]

Trouble is...most of those people will still buy TV's first, and then complain they can't feel their kids.

As a guy working in (and currently sitting in) child support nonpayment court, this is absolutely true. There are guys in here who are in their 30's and have never held jobs. Wouldn't know it by how they're dressed, though.

Re:blindsided?

[superwiz]

Sales taxes is not what makes NJ a hostile business environment. NJ corporate income tax structure and (almost deliberately) low-tech regulatory agencies (in one of the most high-tech states in the nation) is what makes it hostile to the business environment.

Re:blindsided?

[Anonymous Coward]

At least Michael Jackson won't be feeling them for the parents anymore giving parents more chances too.

Re:blindsided?

[levicivita]

New Jersey... culture? As someone who lived there for 4 years, I call bullcrap. Screw you guys, I'm going home.

Re:blindsided?

[Red Flayer]

Oh, that's right, NJ has no good restaurants, community theatres, parks, museums, or anything else. Never mind the proximity to Philly and NY.

If you lived in NJ for 4 years and didn't explore any of it... well, your loss.

I sure hope you didn't live in NE NJ, SW NJ, or the shore... if you did live in one of those cultural wastelands, I pity you.

Re:blindsided?

[Anonymous Coward]

How did NJ get to be one of the most-high tech states in the nation if it has a "hostile business environment?"

Re:blindsided?

[osu-neko]

Honestly, I'd rather pay 7% for my TV knowing that people who can't afford TVs didn't have to shell out more to feed their kids so that my TV could be cheaper.

Communist. :p

Re:blindsided?

[superwiz]

Most NJ residents work in either NYC or Philadelphia. It's a state of 2 suburbs. It has one of the highest education levels per capita. But most of the educated people living in NJ don't work there.

Re:blindsided?

[PitaBred]

It's sad because it's true.

Re:blindsided?

[vertinox]

There are many many thousands of corporations registered in DE for business purposes, but don't think for a second that those corporations are not required to file and pay sales taxes in the states where they have a physical presence.

IANAL but I talked to one about this issue once but the project never went through so I never went through with it.

The answer is "depends" on where the business is done.

Basically the registered agent is the business address of your business in Delaware. It is basically a company that gets your bills, legal documents, and court subpoenas (if you happen to have to go to court) and in all legal sense the business is in Delaware.

You usually have to either pay an official registered agent or know someone who lives in Delaware that you trust to receive your mail.

The income passes through the LLC and goes to you as regular income so the states can still tax you for income while you reside in their state, but they can't charge you for a sales tax if there was never any business in the state.

However, this doesn't mean you can open up a shop downtown Raleigh, NC and not pay business taxes but rather if your actions do not happen inside the state borders than it should not "in theory" be liable for taxation purposes.

Now the issue that we discussed with him was that the business owner was in one state, the webserver in another, and the LLC would be in Delaware.

That said, he said he'd have to research that scenario because it might be best if the web server was moved to Delaware too because if you did have to go to court the "shop" was located where the web server was located which might, in some cases, have business taxes applied to it.

This was a few years ago and things might have changed so if you really need advice go talk with a business lawyer in Delaware and one in your home state and they can review it for you.

Of course you could just beat the whole system and move to Delaware and be your own web host and registered agent.

Re:blindsided?

[legirons]

2. Time for the referral businesses in NC to relocate. Or close up shop. We'd be happy to have them (and their income & property tax revenues) here in NJ.

Or they could setup a proxy LLC in Delaware through a registered agent.

People go to Delaware for something other than bankrupcy proceedings?!?

Re:blindsided?

[timepilot]

Not even close to true.

Re:blindsided?

[amicusNYCL]

What should he have said? "People who can't afford to buy TVs?" When those are the people you're talking about, it's easier to say "those people." There's no reason to bring your insecurities or sensitivities into this.

Re:blindsided?

[vertinox]

Also... Forgot to mention what he also said about money tranactions.

Once we setup the LLC in Delaware would have to get the EID from the IRS and use that to setup a bank account in the state of Delaware and all transactions would have to go through there.

So the LLC is treated as a person who has an address and a bank account in the state of Delaware. It just happens to send you personal income which gets income tax rather than sales tax.

Again talk with a lawyer if you ever wanted to do something like that.

Re:blindsided?

[superwiz]

> Not even close to true. Umm... It's completely true. There is roughly 10.5 million people living in NJ (+/- 1 million). Roughly 7 million people commute into Manhattan each day (9-10 million work force - 2.5 million residents). About 4 million of those 7 come from NJ (just because the throughput capacity of the east entrances into Manhattan is a bit larger than West+South+North. That already accounts for 4 out 10.5 million on NJ residents. Most people who commuting into NYC are forced to do so because it has a higher concentration of jobs for highly educated people. Philadelphia hasn't been as much a factor in the past 20 years, but when Philadelphia was still a viable city, many people who worked in the downtown didn't want to live in Philadelphia for the same reasons that most middle-class avoids urban setting in the US (high crime, bad public schools, etc). Anyhow, today that account for about another 500k to 1 million NJ residents. That's 4-5 million residents of a state with population of 10.5 million. That 10.5 million includes housewives, school children, retirees, etc. So yeah, the bulk of the work force that creates the wealth in NJ works in NYC or Philadelphia. Everyone else either works in some local service industry or isn't in the work force. That would make the statement "NJ is a state of 2 suburbs" true.

Re:blindsided?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course you could just beat the whole system and move to Delaware

Delaware doesn't really 'exist'... it's just a legal fiction for corporate purposes... this is why you've never met someone 'from' Delaware.

I guess you could move to Maryland or something, though.

Re:blindsided?

[Kohath]

Honestly, I'd rather pay 7% for ...

Honestly, you can pay extra if you want, without anyone else having to pay extra. When you fill out your state income taxes, just write the check out for an extra $20,000. The treasury will be more than happy to accept the extra money you want to pay.

But, of course, you don't do that. Because, honestly, you really want other people to pay so you can direct the money to buy things you value.

Re:blindsided?

[Red Flayer]

I'm an accountant who has handled sales taxes for a large company with physical presences in 16 states and 11 countries... trust me on this one :)

Regardless of where your corporation is registered, if you have a physical presence in a state, and taxable sales in that state, you have to pay tax on those sales. So if you're in NC, registered in DE, and have sales via Amazon in NC... you have to pay sales tax to NC. If delivery of the good is taken in a different state, it's not taxable (the recipient is responsible for use tax, however, if applicable in their state).

Re: your situation... don't let a lawyer confuse the issue, he gets paid more the longer it takes him to resolve the issue. The shop is in state "A", registered in state "B", and the server is in state "C". Sales tax in state "C" is independent of which state "B" is. What matters is if there are sales in state "A" or "C", where the owner has a physical presence. Now I'm not sure if the web servers have had their definition changed as a physical presence in the past few years... but for owned servers, they definitely used to constitute a physical presence. This is one reason why it's advantageous to locate warehouses, server farms, etc in tax-favorable states. It's also important to note that different states have different tax codes, and some sales that are taxable in one state are not taxable in another, all else being equal.

Re:blindsided?

[BitZtream]

Or they could just go away as they are rather useless anyway.

Re:blindsided?

[superwiz]

He said proximity to culture. Not presence of culture. There are places in NJ which have a shorter commute to NYC cultural centers than most of the greater NYC. So NJ residents along the Hudson get to enjoy all the benefits of living in America (as opposed to NYC) while having easy access to both NYC job market and NYC cultural attractions.

Re:blindsided?

[webheaded]

"Honestly, I'd rather pay 7% for my TV knowing that people who can't afford TVs didn't have to shell out more to feed their kids so that my TV could be cheaper."

Trouble is...most of those people will still buy TV's first, and then complain they can't feel their kids.

Hey, it doesn't really cost money to feel your kids...well except maybe when the inevitable criminal prosecution comes...

Re:blindsided?

[timepilot]

I hope you're not drawing your conclusions by how many people travel into Manhattan daily.

It sounds like you've either never been there or have never been outside of northern New Jersey if you have been there.

Many New Jersey residents who work for Rutgers, Princeton, Seton Hall, J&J, Pfizer, Merck, AT&T, Lucent, and Verizon would probably qualify as highly educated. Those are not "local service industries."

Re:blindsided?

[superwiz]

"Many" does not make for statistical indicator. You do realize, btw, that AT&T and Verizon are now one company, do you not? And that other than Lucent, they are in Manhattan? 25% of all pharmaceutical companies in the country are headquartered in the Princeton area. But the numbers tell more than personal accounts (that I suspect you base your observations on). 4-5 million is a very significant portion of the NJ population that works in Manhattan. That number dwarfs the number of employees that work for Lucent, Rutgers, Princeton, Setton Hall, all small colleges based in NJ and all pharmaceutical researchers/executives based in NJ. The people you mentioned are highly educated. But they still represent a minority (ie, less than 50%) of the Ivy League graduates and/or graduate-degree holders residing of NJ.

Re:blindsided?

[jshackney]

Actually, they buy Playstations and Air Jordans first, then the Escalade, then they get on the dole for free school lunches.

I wish I were joking.

Re:blindsided?

[LaskoVortex]

Fuck you for saying "those people".

What do *you* mean "those people"? You aren't even "those people". In fact, I'm not a "those people" and I'm offended at *your* use of "those people". You people!

Re:blindsided?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, all the united States are becoming one big collective shithole.

Time to leave. I'm considering seasteading.

Re:blindsided?

[DavidTC]

First of all, there is almost certainly no 'physical presence' in 99% of these cases. These are mostly guys who are putting links on their blogs to Amazon, not actual retail companies.

Secondly, a purchased server almost certainly does not count as such a presence. Under Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, you need a 'substantial nexus' to qualify, which probably means, at least, some sort of actual employees. In that case, the court decided that a computer to copy floppies for a mail-order software business didn't count as a 'substantial nexus', so it's unlikely that a server would.

It's unlikely that anywhere there were no actual company employees would count as one. The whole point is that the state can compel employees in that state to collect sales tax from the buyer for them. (As opposed to the buyers, who otherwise have to send it in manually...and never do) Without actual employees, it's hard to see exactly who can be compelled by said state in the first place.

Although this is almost entirely moot as businesses rarely actually purchase servers and have them installed somewhere that is not their property. They lease custom built machines in a manner that is like a purchase, but if you stop paying your hosting fees, the hosting company owns the machines, so they are not actually purchased.

I have no idea why you think that owned servers used to count as 'physical presence'.

Re:blindsided?

[DavidTC]

The treasury will be more than happy to accept the extra money you want to pay.

Um, no, actually, if you overpay your taxes, you will simply get the money sent back. (Actually, they might not accept a check for that much over.)

Re:blindsided?

[demonlapin]

NJ doesn't tax toilet paper, food, or clothing.

Are you sure? Has this changed? I had a friend in college who had worked, during high school, in a NJ pharmacy that was still in the pre-scanner era (this was early 90s). Anyway, in the eyes of the state of NJ, while toothbrushes were a non-taxed "necessity", toothpaste was not. ISTR that she also said that toilet tissue was not considered a "necessary" item. She always thought that was a bizarre bit of logic.

Re:blindsided?

[demonlapin]

The more people that talk negatively about it, the better my chances of having beautiful rural NJ never overrun by midwestern suburban transplants.

Yeah, well, better hope that Philly never gets its shit together. Look, North Jersey is just toast. It's only a matter of time. I mean, go look at some of the hills that were being blown apart for aggregate (?!?!) in the 90s along 287. But the farmland in South Jersey... yeah, it's nice stuff. Same with the horse country along 206/202. Couldn't stand the winters - I'm a Southerner - but the land is just beautiful.

Re:blindsided?

[timepilot]

"Everyone else either works in some local service industry or isn't in the work force. That would make the statement "NJ is a state of 2 suburbs" true."

That statement doesn't leave room for "less than 50%"

I'm basing my observations on actual observations. I've lived in the state for a while. I'd still like to know where you're getting your 4-5 million number from and why you think that they represent only highly-educated people. I know quite a few people that work in Manhattan, live in NJ, and who are not highly educated.

Re:blindsided?

[superwiz]

That statement doesn't leave room for "less than 50%"

Fair enough. My language could have been more accurate. Instead it was colloquial. I suspect the distinction caught your eye because you happen to be in the group which my language didn't account for.

I'm basing my observations on actual observation.

Unless that involves some sort of census position (private or public), that experience in anecdotal.

I've lived in the state for a while. I'd still like to know where you're getting your 4-5 million number from and why you think that they represent only highly-educated people. I know quite a few people that work in Manhattan, live in NJ, and who are not highly educated.

I've lived in a number of places in NJ and worked in and out of NYC. Having lived in a number of places in the state, I had a chance to observe commuting patterns. The numbers that I got for the population sizes and number of commuters are derived from general information sources (I used to read a number of of newspapers everyday... I had to scale it down quite a bit after I realized that I was going through 4 newspapers a day... so I am afraid I can't give you an exact link or reference). As for the level of education of NYC commuters, these people are going through the grueling commute only because much higher salaries can be had in the city. And I am talking about the 8-10, 4-7 commuters. So they are not students. They are professionals. So we are talking about professionals wth salaries large enough to justify grueling commute. I am not sure how much I can merge these wide-ranged personal experience with more general data that gathered from various news sources and which I find interesting enough that I, apparently, keep it in my head before I simply say that I am satisfied with the level of information that I have to reach the conclusion that I reached.

Another (seemingly unrelated) piece of evidence that speaks volumes for the education level of the state is that it is one of the few states (if not the only one) where the largest voting block are independents (ie, more independents than Republcans or Democrats). Despite all the attempted demonization of independents in the last election, these are the people who decide on case-by-case basis on the issues when they vote. And careful consideration (as opposed to blind commitment) is a mark of an educated mind.

Re:blindsided?

[Kohath]

You are incorrect. The treasury accepts donations. You just have to tell them it's a donation and not a mistake.

The folks who are "happy to pay" extra should just do it and leave the rest of us out of it. But they don't, because they're being fundamentally dishonest. They want other people to pay so they can spend.

Who wouldn't be "happy to pay" $10 in order to spend $10 million on your favorite priority? It's just a shallow way to justify taking $10 million from people.

Re:blindsided?

[timepilot]

It sounds like your position is based on your own anecdotal evidence, supported by factoids.

We're probably going to have to just agree to disagree. It's worth a PhD thesis for each of us to argue the point well enough to satisfy the other.

Re:blindsided?

[poopdeville]

He was making very broad assumptions about the benefactors of that tax. That's what the problem is. Hidden under the guise of the phrase "those people", as if "those people" were a homogeneous group of leaches. He probably has never met any of "those people" but feels comfortable bashing millions of working class and unemployed.

Re:blindsided?

[poopdeville]

In fact, I would go so far as to say that it makes a mockery of the effort of the 35 million working Americans who struggle to feed their families every day.

And I do have a problem with that.

Re:blindsided?

[cayenne8]

"He was making very broad assumptions about the benefactors of that tax. That's what the problem is. Hidden under the guise of the phrase "those people", as if "those people" were a homogeneous group of leaches. He probably has never met any of "those people" but feels comfortable bashing millions of working class and unemployed."

I live in New Orleans, I have for over a decade.

Just from my life here alone, I am intimately familiar with 'those people' that I speak of, of all races. The largest example of seeing generations of people living on the dole as I previously described is/was easily seen here by driving by any of the large number of housing projects and seeing what life is like there.

No, not everyone here speaks sitting from a throne on high. I've seen it...I have known extremely poor working class people. While some of those friends and people have made it out of that cycle and lifestyle...most have not, and ARE leeches on society and the system.

Re:blindsided?

[Red Flayer]

I have no idea why you think that owned servers used to count as 'physical presence'.

Probably because we maintained a small staff to maintain them... this was not via a hosting service. IIRC, there was also order processing done at that location.

First of all, there is almost certainly no 'physical presence' in 99% of these cases. These are mostly guys who are putting links on their blogs to Amazon, not actual retail companies.

The small operators who run these businesses from their garage certainly are not exempt from sales tax in the state they live (which would be the only state they have a presence in, if their fulfillment also happens from the garage).

Re:blindsided?

[Red Flayer]

I think your home state would crack down on that pretty hard. That's tax avoidance, plain and simple. If you're in NJ, for example, you'd still be responsible for paying sales tax in NJ on your NJ sales -- regardless of whether or not you're registered in DE, and do all your banking through DE. Setting up DE banking simply makes it harder for you to get caught... but eventually, you will get caught.

I hope you don't use that lawyer again. He has advised you very poorly. That kind of advice can get lawyers sanctioned.

Re:blindsided?

[DavidTC]

They aren't fulfilling orders at all. Amazon is.

These businesses that Amazon stopped accepting referrals mostly existed solely for the purpose of getting paid for referrals.

They have no actual customers or goods or orders whatsoever.

And Amazon doesn't really mind paying sales tax on their operations. They pay sales tax when shipping to people in states they have warehouses.

What this bill tried to do is apparently require sales tax on orders referred to from NC. Which would be, apparently, in addition to any sales tax Amazon would collect (or wouldn't collect if they didn't have a physical presence there) for buyers.

Aka, North Carolina was trying to double-dip. States only deserve sales tax when the buyer is in their state, not additionally when the 'affiliate' is in their state. An affiliate commission is not a 'sale' that is taxable via sales tax, and, even if it were, it would only be on the amount paid to the affiliate, not the entire purchase. (OTOH, is it entirely taxable via income tax, and is already taxed there.)

This isn't to be confused with the state having the ability to force companies to collect sales tax, which is, as we've been talking about, allowed when the company has a 'physical presence' in the state. The state, in theory, imposes sales taxes on all purchases with buyers in their state, it's just that they can't force businesses out of state to collect it for them.

Re:blindsided?

[mattwarden]

Oooo ooo tax haven!!!! Cheaters!!! Unpatriotic!!!! Et cetera...

The only way to make sure

[guruevi]

is by biting them where it hurts: their pockets. You can add all the sales tax on out-of-state purchases you want (whether that is federally allowed -- I'm not sure), if you don't sell anything, you don't have anything to tax so revenue will remain 0.

They probably saw what happened in NY and they don't want it to happen everywhere. Amazon decided to add tax to NY purchases and me and a lot of other people stopped purchasing from them because other stores (like NewEgg, TigerDirect and Geeks) were undercutting them by about 8%. Even though my organization is tax exempt I don't purchase at Amazon simply because they don't have the provision for me to state that I am tax exempt.

Re:The only way to make sure

[avandesande]

It's not zero, it's a negative amount, because these businesses will then stop paying a bunch of taxes that they are already burdened with.

Re:The only way to make sure

[CodeBuster]

New York is sort of a special case because it is the home state of the NYSE (New York Stock Exchange) which would probably come under pressure from the famously aggressive New York Attorney General's office to "encourage" Amazon to pay the tax...or else. While the leverage of the State of New York is not unlimited, it probably is more powerful than what North Carolina can threaten Amazon with for non-compliance.

Re:The only way to make sure

[Anonymous Coward]

You realize that you just admitted (or very nearly so) to tax evasion, right? You're still responsible for state sales tax from NewEgg, TigerDirect, Geeks, and everywhere else, but if there's no physical presence in your state it's your responsibility to remit it to the state rather than the retailer's.

Finally somebody who stand up against more taxes

[Anonymous Coward]

This country is going down the drain with the burden of all these taxes.

How will we end up competing with other nations when it is so hostile to have your business in this country?

How are we going to motivate people to make money, when all they see is more taxes, who work the extra day or the extra hour when you know the progressive tax systems will penalize you for doing it.

"Taxes only pays for governmental bureaucracy that collects the tax, and provides little or nothing to the poor." - Dr. Mohammad Yunus

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[db10]

amazon has feet? are they for sale?

It's not tacky

[rpillala]

That's not the way to use people who are referring business to your business.

That's exactly the way to use people who are referring business to your business. The only thing that motivates a business "relationship" is the exchange of value. If the proposed law was going to cause this change anyway, making it early as an example is the way to get people to "call down to Raleigh."

While your at it......

[Anonymous Coward]

Get them to reverse the public smoking ban they just nazi'd through.......

As a small restaurant owner, I have the right to decide if the use of a COMPLETELY LEGAL substance such as tobacco hurts or helps me bring people through the door to keep my employees and bills paid.

I wish I could shove the horse you rode in on straight up your southern expressway with your opinionated legislation.

Re:While your at it......

[Anonymous Coward]

What has happened to North Carolina lately?

Re:While your at it......

[grahamsz]

And you appear to lack the cojones to post under your own account.

Simple reality is I can only think of 2 or 3 establishments that were proactive in keeping smoking areas that were separately ventilated and which their staff weren't ordinarily required to enter while smokers were present. Most places that kicked up a fuss about new laws were the same ones that played fast and loose with the health of their patrons and employees.

Re:While your at it......

[JesseMcDonald]

Would you want to liable for a regular patron that contracted lung cancer after breathing smoke in your establishment?

I would certainly hope that it isn't possible to incur liability for exposure to conditions the customer is fully aware of before walking in the door. Subjecting customers to unexpected or hidden risk would be one thing, but when someone goes into a place of business knowing in advance that they'll be exposed to second-hand smoke the responsibility for any potential consequences is theirs alone. A warning sign for new customers might be in order--though it would be difficult to argue that any significant damage could be incurred in the time it takes to observe the conditions and leave.

You'd already have some liability if your smoking customer spilled a drink and the same non-smoking patron slipped on it.

Citation, please? Any reasonable theory of liability depends on the liable individual contributing in some way to the damage, by action or negligence. Neither is the case here, unless you're leaving something important out of your description.

Re:While your at it......

[dlaudel]

Sheesh, how long are people in your restaurant? You're not going to catch cancer from an hour long dinner at a smoke-filled establishment. You'd have to be in there a very significant amount of time to damage your lungs. Besides, if you were a restaurant owner, you can say up front, "This is a smoking establishment." As long as you aren't taking customers in at gunpoint and forcing them to stay in the smoke, it's not your problem.

Re:While your at it......

[grahamsz]

A better example than a patron would be an employee - the vast majority of bars i've frequented left their employees in situations where the had no choice but to breathe in second hand smoke. I know the free-market extremists will disagree, but i think your employer should be responsible for a safe working environment.

I certainly know of someone who got a nasty laceration in his foot from broken glass from a customer spill. The bar settled and covered his medical costs.

Re:While your at it......

[grahamsz]

What about your employees? They spend a fairly significant portion of your day in a smoke filled room.

I have a hell of a lot more sympathy for the places that structured their business around separately ventilated spaces that employees didn't have to enter, but most bars and restaurants weren't proactive.

Re:While your at it......

[RobertLTux]

also you can cut down the problem some if you put the smoking section near the air returns (i think that the kitchen is effectively negative pressure and the upper floors of a multistory setup should also be good)

note IANAHVACE please consult one as required

Re:While your at it......

[JesseMcDonald]

It doesn't matter whether the person in question is a customer, employee, or visiting dignitary. The only criteria that matters is that they entered the property willingly, knowing the conditions. That is as true for employees as it is for customers.

That fact that the business in your anecdote settled doesn't mean they would have been found liable in court--or that they were actually liable, which isn't always the same thing. The customer was liable, if anyone, for breaking the glass and thus creating the situation. However, it doesn't look good for employees to sue customers even when doing so would be justified, so I'm not particularly surprised that the employer settled the matter itself as an act of goodwill.

Re:While your at it......

[YouWantFriesWithThat]

if you don't want blacklung don't be a coal miner, eh?

Re:While your at it......

[BarryJacobsen]

A better example than a patron would be an employee - the vast majority of bars i've frequented left their employees in situations where the had no choice but to breathe in second hand smoke. I know the free-market extremists will disagree, but i think your employer should be responsible for a safe working environment.

I certainly know of someone who got a nasty laceration in his foot from broken glass from a customer spill. The bar settled and covered his medical costs.

That's certainly a different situation than being exposed to second hand smoke, though. If you apply to work at a bar/restaurant where smoking is allowed (which you could easily tell when you were picking up your application), I think you should expect that you'll be around second hand smoke and if that is objectionable - choose not to work there! If you object to working outside in the heat, perhaps you shouldn't apply for a construction job in California - it's not the hiring construction companies job to provide a portable air conditioning unit for you. If you object to working with children - you should probably not try to become a second grade teacher. If you object to working around alcohol - you should not apply to a liquor store. If you object to working around smoke, you should choose not to work at a place WHERE PEOPLE FREQUENTLY SMOKE. You are not entitled to work at whatever job you want with whatever conditions you want, no one owes you the type of job you dream of.

Re:While your at it......

[grahamsz]

True, though working in the heat (assuming you are properly hydrated and sunscreened) doesn't have particular long term health consequences.

Should it be acceptable to hire people who'll be exposed to radioactivity in doses that we know stand some reasonable chance of causing cancer?

Maybe the US Radium Corporation has a position for you in their legal department.

Re:While your at it......

[kaiser423]

OSHA now regulates coal dust, etc. When OSHA tried to regulate amounts of second hand smoke that workers were allowed to be exposed to, they got bitch-slapped into next year.

If second hand smoke is a potential workplace hazard, then why won't the anti-smoking activists let OSHA regulate it as one?!? I'll give ya a hint: It's because they're not worried about the worker's health. They just for whatever reason want everyone to stop. Period. Bar None. This workplace smoke problem is just a means to an end; don't take their arguments at face value.

Re:While your at it......

[Alex Belits]

It's because smoking endangers health of other customers, thus making it a public health problem, not just workspace hazard, you retard.

Re:While your at it......

[wagnerrp]

You might be able to make the claim that the establishment is at fault for lung cancer contracted from a long term employee, however a patron nothing says a patron has to eat at your restaurant and be subject to smoke.

Bob & Tom had some comedian, Oggie Smith, on a couple years ago when Ohio passed its smoking bans, who put it rather eloquently.

Oggie: I don't like what goes on at Bed, Bath, & Beyond. I am against it on all levels. But I'm not going to put it in an axis of evil with Baby Gap and Banana Republic and try to ban their existance. I just won't go there.
Bob: I like Bed, Bath, and Beyond. It smells nice.
Oggie: Well you can go there, and you can smoke. I don't care, because I won't be there!

Re:While your at it......

[asdfghjklqwertyuiop]

Should it be acceptable to hire people who'll be exposed to radioactivity in doses that we know stand some reasonable chance of causing cancer?

Sure. Why not? There are all plenty of examples of examples of similarly risky jobs.

Re:While your at it......

[Anonymous Coward]

Your examples are too different as well. Secondhand smoke is an economically quantified serious health hazard. Like lifting too much, being too high without a harness, and working unprotected to asbestos, it is a safety infraction on the part of the employer. We set limits on workplace hazards because we don't want to live in shithole conditions like large swaths of the third world, and because we have good national health care that we must restrain to affordable levels. (No, I'm not in the States.) The only reason it took so long to include smoking as an unacceptable workplace hazard was the deep-pocket industry lobbying & lying coupled with sluggish public intellect.

And I like smoking. But I can't argue with banning it from the workplace.

Re:While your at it......

[Late Adopter]

There's still plenty of coal miners in the US, which is a particularly unsafe profession (both immediate and long-term risks).

Re:While your at it......

[superwiz]

When you walk into a restaurant, you walk into a PRIVATE establishment. Claiming public health concerns to regulate behavior on private property is at the very least disingenuous.

Re:While your at it......

[Magic5Ball]

Let's then also consider outlawing workplaces near major highways where exposure to vehicle emissions poses the same type of threat as second hand smoke.

Re:While your at it......

[realnrh]

Right! Public health inspectors have no place coming into PRIVATE restaurants! Just think of how much money the poor restaurateurs could save if they didn't have to put up with those intrusive inspections, citing them for things like 'chefs not washing hands' or 'seafood kept in unrefrigerated piles on a dirt floor next to the catbox.'

Re:While your at it......

[superwiz]

Right! Public health inspectors have no place coming into PRIVATE restaurants! Just think of how much money the poor restaurateurs could save if they didn't have to put up with those intrusive inspections, citing them for things like 'chefs not washing hands' or 'seafood kept in unrefrigerated piles on a dirt floor next to the catbox.'

To our great shame, we have produced a class of government compliance workers who live off of bribes rather than their salaries (aka "safety inspectors"). Oh, and I am pretty sure I can be sued for giving food poisoning to my house guests. So can the restaurants. As for washing hands, unless you have those inspectors camping in the restaurants, they do not in any way guarantee it. But hey, let's pay the exorbitant price for the illusion of safety while giving up actual freedoms of free association between rational men. Nobody gives a damn, anyway.

Re:While your at it......

[xmundt]

Greetings and Salutations.
          However, I, for one, GREATLY appreciate the no smoking rule for restaurants here in Tennessee. I, for one, like to smell and taste the food I am eating, and, not the acrid and annoying smell of stale tobacco smoke. Smoking and non-smoking areas for restaurants were a joke, as, unless the two areas were in separate buildings, or floors of a building, with isolated A/C systems, the smoke WOULD permiate everything.
          As a matter of fact, there are a number of restaurants here that I refused to eat at, because of the smoking environment...and a lot of them have gone under in the past decade or so, because a lot of people apparently agreed with my stance.

Re:While your at it......

[getnate]

" However, I, for one, GREATLY appreciate the no smoking rule for restaurants here in Tennessee. I, for one, like to smell and taste the food I am eating, and, not the acrid and annoying smell of stale tobacco smoke. Smoking and non-smoking areas for restaurants were a joke... " Then just don't eat there, why support greater government control? If someone wants to run an establishment where smoking is allowed then let them!

Re:While your at it......

[arkhan_jg]

The employer/employee relationship is often a coercive one. The further down the payscale you go, the more likely the employee is going to be in a very difficult situation financially if they lose their job, or if they do not take what they can get in the first place. From the employer's point of view, one unskilled worker is much like another, so they can dictate onerous terms, and employees are in a poor position to refuse them.

As such, given the position of power of the employer, the government steps in to ensure certain minimum standards of safety and employment conditions in the workplace, such that this inbalanced relationship doesn't lead to employees being exploited.

Of course, employees can choose not to work in unsafe conditions; but when the choice is unsafe conditions or penury, people can easily be exploited. We've decided not to allow that to happen to the most vulnerable in our society, which I personally think is a good thing.

Now, you can argue that 2nd-hand smoke in the workplace is not a health hazard anything like of the scale of the industrial abuses of the workforce of the past, and there I'd be likely to agree with you, and if you were to argue that the minimal risks of 2nd hand smoke should make it an optional choice rather than a government enforced protection I would likely nod my head there too.

But just because this particular example might be an overblown knee-jerk reaction to a particular non-existant healthcare issue, that doesn't mean that government protection of the workforce, against them being forced to do work seriously hazardous to their health due to lack of financial options is a bad idea in principle, or in most cases of actual practise.

Re:While your at it......

[tmosley]

And yet even with all those fancy regulations, restaurants are still filthy, and there's still SLIME IN THE ICE MACHINES!

Regulations don't keep restaurants clean, customers do (by not going to filthy restaurants).

Indeed, that's how White Castle became popular, they prepared everything in a spotless kitchen that was fully visible to the customers.

Re:While your at it......

[grahamsz]

I suppose that's a fair point, although coal mines are required to take steps to mitigate a lot of the risks. Wasn't there some huge fine assessed in that recent utah mine collapse?

I've seen bars that kept the smokers in a separate room, with it's own ventilation and away from the staffs usual working area. I'd consider that to be a responsible way to operate such an establishment - yet very few places took that initiative.

Re:While your at it......

[b4dc0d3r]

Public health inspectors are responsible for health problems caused by the establishment, not the patrons.

You could argue, and probably will, that allowing people to smoke makes the business responsible. But the employees aren't smoking while they are working. I know that because that would be a health code violation for which the employer is responsible.

Now you probably want to split hairs about whether a patron who spits on the salad bar would be a health concern. Sure, because you can't get Hepatitis C through smoke, but you could if the patron had hep C and recently flossed their gingivitis infested gums and bled into their spittle.

What argument have I not forseen? Remember, "having cigarette smoke in the air" is probably not on the health code violations list, unless the city has a no-smoking ordinance. And even then it's probably not on there - you'd just get a fine, and that's possibly not even from the health department depending on who is tasked to enforce it.

Your turn.

Re:While your at it......

[Anonymous Coward]

You have no idea what you are talking about.

Public health laws extend to restaurants, and even protect morons like you from
food poisoning.

Do the world a favor and kill yourself now, before you replicate and force another
Wal-Mart to open so your children can be employed.

Re:While your at it......

[demonlapin]

Very few took that initiative because it's really expensive if it's even possible, and there's not really a way to recover the costs associated with it - we'd see nonsmoking bars in every city if that was a big selling point. It's not. Thing is, most barflies - and that's the core of the business, not the weekenders - drink AND smoke. Lose them and you don't have anybody in your bar five days a week.

Re:While your at it......

[NCSU_Statesman]

It's all about disclosure and the right to contract for goods and services. When you order a hamburger off the menu, you do so with the implicit understanding that you are ordering ground beef free of dirt or animal feces or whatever. When you enter a restaurant that allows smoking, you are making a conscious decision to expose yourself to risks voluntarily. I can extend the logic of the public smoking ban proponents to shellfish. When you order oysters in a restaurant in North Carolina, there's a pretty clear notice on the menu of the dangers involved. There's often one clearly posted on the wall, too. You are voluntarily making a conscious decision to expose yourself to risk. Should that be banned as well?

Re:While your at it......

[TheoMurpse]

Smoking bans aren't made to protect patrons; they're made to protect the employees of the restaurant.

You may say "well, those employees can work elsewhere."

But then it sounds like you're arguing that there shouldn't be any OSHA regulations at all. Are you? Maybe you are, but then I think a lot of reasonable people would disagree with you.

Re:While your at it......

[TheoMurpse]

Citation, please?

Someone who comes into your restaurant to eat is classified as a licensee for tortious negligence analysis. The business owes a licensee a duty to warn against any reasonably foreseeable hazard. Given enough time between spilt water and the slip, you would have breached your duty to the victim and would be liable for tortious negligence.

"Cuts of" or Cuts off"?

[gemtech]

Would somebody make up their mind? Off-topic slams welcome.

Re:"Cuts of" or Cuts off"?

[gemtech]

and now the editor steps in and fixes it......

Excuse?

[lsdi]

It looks like an Amazon's excuse to not deal with taxation and/or NC. I'm sure people in NC would agree to pay rather than stop doing business. There is something fishy in this case

Re:Excuse?

[JesseMcDonald]

I'm sure people in NC would agree to pay rather than stop doing business. There is something fishy in this case.

The "something fishy" is that NC wants to tax Amazon--not the local associates--as if they had a presence in the state, based on their relationships with local associates (who are undoubtedly already paying NC taxes). Ergo, Amazon is severing its NC-based associate relationships to avoid any appearance of a taxable in-state presence.

I doubt that these taxes on out-of-state businesses are even remotely Constitutional, but I don't blame Amazon for playing it safe.

Re:Excuse?

[frank_adrian314159]

The "something fishy" is that NC wants to tax Amazon--not the local associates--as if they had a presence in the state...

The issue is somewhat tricky, because the local associates are using Amazon as a sales agent and using them to avoid sales taxes that other local businesses pay, giving them an unfair advantage. There is a basic fairness issue here (which I'm sure that local businesses without a web presence are pushing).

Re:Excuse?

[Just Some Guy]

The issue is somewhat tricky

Not really. Amazon does not have a presence in NC and should not be taxed as though they had one. What if NC decided to tax you next, even though you don't live or work or have property there?

Re:Excuse?

[BitZtream]

Just curious, which part of which constitution is it that you think says anything that prevents taxation of interstate commerce.

I keep hearing unconstitutional, and I keep thinking what country do these people live in?

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[Anonymous Coward]

So NC is acting like a typical "me first" government and ignoring its responsibility to the community. What else is new?

The fact is, governments have been leeching off communities for far too long.

Fixed that for you.

not tacky

[v1]

They're trying to tick off all their associates and get them to call down to Raleigh,' Barrett said. 'I think that is pretty tacky.

Sounds like an excellent way to motivate your local associates to get their arses over to the capital and ride their representatives. There's not a great deal Amazon can do directly to fix this, they have to rely on their local affiliates to keep the local conditions amicable to their business. If the locals aren't moving, then it's time to light a fire under them.

Got their attention too didn't it? Sounds like it's working as intended to me...

Re:not tacky

[BitZtream]

There's not a great deal Amazon can do directly to fix this

Oh? They couldn't boycott NC themselves?

So its good for them that they go ahead and push it off to someone else, but they don't take a hit themselves?

'I'm not going to let you sell my stuff because your state did something bad sorry it hurts you, by the way, I don't really want to get hurt myself, so I'm going to keep selling all day long and continue making money while you don't.'

Are you serious? Don't give me this bullshit like Amazon is doing the right thing or has its hands tied, thats just bullshit.

They are using their affiliates like pawns, while taking very little risk themselves. It may not be illegal, but it sure as fuck doesn't fall into the 'right thing to do' category.

If they wanted to do the right thing, they'd stop selling in NC completely, but that would cost them money, far easier to use the little pawns in a bad economy to do your bidding.

Theres a word for this sort of treatment ...

Re:not tacky

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, essentially putting your affiliates out of business because you're unwilling to pay higher taxes. Excellent way to win your affiliates' hearts and minds.

Re:not tacky

[idontgno]

Oh? They couldn't boycott NC themselves?

Why are you advocating the nuclear option? This is an incremental escalation, and a focused response to the specific issue. Amazon would consider boycotting NC if NC made a credible play at their direct sales. NC hasn't, and NC can't.

Good Lord, why don't you just suggest Amazon hire ninja assassins to off NC's legislature? That's about as over-the-top.

So its good for them that they go ahead and push it off to someone else, but they don't take a hit themselves?

They're losing affiliate commissions. It's not huge, but it's a hit. And more to the point, the lost revenue is less then the probable costs of compliance, so it's a sensible business decision.

'I'm not going to let you sell my stuff because your state did something bad sorry it hurts you, by the way, I don't really want to get hurt myself, so I'm going to keep selling all day long and continue making money while you don't.'

You have an odd habit. You make up internal monologue for other people. This allows you to project whatever suspicions, frustrations, and unproven biases you have into the words and thoughts of other people. Maybe if you make your own explanations for other peoples' actions, you can justify your spittle-flinging ranting about them? I bet you're lovely in traffic. Why yes, they are cutting you off to PERSONALLY offend you.

Let's at least pretend to be factually accurate. Amazon said "We are discontinuing our affiliate relationship with you (i.e., no longer advertising your products and facilitating your sales) because it exposes us to unjustified taxation." The rest of your little "quote" is just in your head.

They are using their affiliates like pawns, while taking very little risk themselves. It may not be illegal, but it sure as fuck doesn't fall into the 'right thing to do' category.

I'd be curious to hear a reasoned, rational explanation of the "right thing to do" according to you. If that's possible. As far as I can tell, Amazon has done the right thing: refuse to be bullied into a taxation relationship it has no obligation to enter into. Or are you one of those "the government is always right, because it's the government" whackjobs? We don't get many of those here.

If they wanted to do the right thing, they'd stop selling in NC completely

Why? That has nothing to do with the issue. The issue is tax exposure. Direct sales, they have no tax exposure, so they have no issue. Affiliate sales, they do. So, avoid the issue, terminate the affiliations, problem solved.

Theres a word for this sort of treatment ...

Yeah. It's called rational business.

Re:not tacky

[trwww]

Obviously not going to change your mind, but from my perspective: > Oh? They couldn't boycott NC themselves? Who are "themselves"? Obviously, as an entity you mean Amazon... but what exactly do you expect them to do? Amazon would have to go to North Carolina and find constituents to "boycott" NC. These boycotters are not going to do this for Amazon out of the kindness of their hearts, so they would have to pay. Why should Amazon have to pay for that? Why would they even want to get involved? Thats what these partners are supposed to do. And without this fire under their a$$, it would have never happened. > 'I'm not going to let you sell my stuff because your state did something bad sorry it hurts you, by the way, I don't really want to get hurt myself, so I'm going to keep selling all day long and continue making money while you don't.' Yes. This is business. If theres a thorn in your side, you remove it. You're not going to miss the thorn. Also, if you leave the thorn there, its going to get much, much worse. On top of that, undoubtedly its going to increase costs and there will be loss of business for Amazon. They are not going to be able to come out of this unscathed. > If they wanted to do the right thing, they'd stop selling in NC completely, but that would cost them money, far easier to use the little pawns in a bad economy to do your bidding. Unfortunately, this is how things work. Personally, I wouldn't want it any other way. If Amazon doesn't do this, then we're looking at the beginning of paying local taxes for online purchases. This is the only major draw for the consumer, because its a bit riskier, especially for larger purchases (tougher to return). > Theres a word for this sort of treatment ... Right. Its called "good business".

Re:not tacky

[trwww]

Sorry for the repost, f'ed up formatting and I cant figure out how to edit my post:

Obviously not going to change your mind, but from my perspective:

> Oh? They couldn't boycott NC themselves?

Who are "themselves"? Obviously, as an entity you mean Amazon... but what exactly do you expect them to do? Amazon would have to go to North Carolina and find constituents to "boycott" NC. These boycotters are not going to do this for Amazon out of the kindness of their hearts, so they would have to pay. Why should Amazon have to pay for that? Why would they even want to get involved? Thats what these partners are supposed to do. And without this fire under their a$$, it would have never happened.

> 'I'm not going to let you sell my stuff because your state did something bad sorry it hurts you, by the way, I don't really want to get hurt myself, so I'm going to keep selling all day long and continue making money while you don't.'

Yes. This is business. If theres a thorn in your side, you remove it. You're not going to miss the thorn. Also, if you leave the thorn there, its going to get much, much worse. On top of that, undoubtedly its going to increase costs and there will be loss of business for Amazon. They are not going to be able to come out of this unscathed.

> If they wanted to do the right thing, they'd stop selling in NC completely, but that would cost them money, far easier to use the little pawns in a bad economy to do your bidding.

Unfortunately, this is how things work. Personally, I wouldn't want it any other way. If Amazon doesn't do this, then we are looking at the beginning of paying local taxes for online purchases. This is the only major draw for the consumer, because its a bit riskier, especially for larger purchases (tougher to return).

> Theres a word for this sort of treatment ...

Right. Its called "good business".

Re:not tacky

[Zancarius]

They are using their affiliates like pawns, while taking very little risk themselves. It may not be illegal, but it sure as fuck doesn't fall into the 'right thing to do' category.

And if they successfully lobbied, everyone would be screaming about how Amazon bought off the politicians and is a Big Online Retailer and thus inherently evil.

I think you should be directing your anger to the NC legislature...

Re:not tacky

[realnrh]

Amazon could boycott North Carolina themselves. This would have no appreciable benefit for Amazon and would not result in any significant change in the legal situation; other corporations without any pre-existing 'affiliate program' would gain Amazon's market share and, lo and behold, would have exactly the same effect as Amazon's current action is having. Withdrawing entirely from the North Carolina market would be a completely irrational move on their part with no moral benefit. Amazon has not the slightest moral obligation to hang around incurring costs in order to help out its affiliates in making the affiliates' business model work in North Carolina.

Re:not tacky

[Anonymous Coward]

listen fella, amazon can do business with whoever they want, if they dont want to take the hit, they don't have to, they warned the affiliates, admittedly a little slowly, but still did it. If the affiliates want to do business with amazone, it's THEIR business to know what laws are about to be enacted that could affect their business, they apparently had no fucking clue.

WHAT A SURPRISE!

So then amazon says, you know guys, we dont wanna pay this tax, so now, do something about it, or no more sales for you.

sounds a perfect way to get the lazy off their asses, so don't try and paint this as amazon is the bad guy, the state is the bad guy, amazon just made the only sensible decision it could, because the affiliates are too lazy to do anything themselves

Re:not tacky

[BitZtream]

Why do we call Microsoft evil then exactly?

Re:not tacky

[BitZtream]

Amazon would have to go to North Carolina and find constituents to "boycott" NC.

Uhm, not ship any product to NC. If you get to the checkout page on an Amazon order and try to buy from NC than say 'we're not selling to NC because we don't like this law!'.

THAT would be Amazon making a stand. But they aren't going to give up those sales, are they? No, of course not, cause they don't actually care THAT much, they just want to make a scene and get people going.

Yes. This is business. If theres a thorn in your side, you remove it. You're not going to miss the thorn. Also, if you leave the thorn there, its going to get much, much worse. On top of that, undoubtedly its going to increase costs and there will be loss of business for Amazon. They are not going to be able to come out of this unscathed.

And the goverment is a business too, and in this case, Amazon is the thorn in the side, which is lowering the state tax revenue, which in directly means that I get less benefits in my community because of Amazon. Forgive me if I'm not in a big hurry to suck them off for contributing to the degradation of my community.

What is amazon going to pay? Are you refering to the new line item on during your amazon checkout that says 'NC State Sales Tax'? Which they of course pass along directly to the consumer like every other business does? They aren't paying for shit, they just pass it on to you and I.

Amazon is just saying 'well, if your going to tax us, we're not going to play nice and share with your businesses!'

But thats okay, once people realize that the actual price of buying from Amazon is about the same as buying local than people will just buy local and the problem is solved. NC legislature accomplishes its goal and gets business back in the state. But thats not what will happen, because even after people seeing the taxes at the time of sale, Amazon is STILL going to be cheaper in many cases, so guess what, they AREN'T EVEN GOING TO LOSE SALES. And ... the NC legislature STILL wins because they've made up for the tax income that is no longer provided by local businesses. Either way, the NC state politicians have managed to remove the thorn in their side, and Amazon is still just a bunch of spoiled brat douchebags.

Unfortunately, this is how things work. Personally, I wouldn't want it any other way. If Amazon doesn't do this, then we are looking at the beginning of paying local taxes for online purchases. This is the only major draw for the consumer, because its a bit riskier, especially for larger purchases (tougher to return).

And there in lies the problem. You just don't want to pay any taxes and you still want all the services that are provided to you by your local and state governments. You are completely shortsighted and self absorbed. When you do all of your business via mail order, and pay no taxes, what happens to your state and municipal government then?

Did you ever think about that, or were you too caught up in the idea that your tax free shopping loophole was going away?

Re:not tacky

[trwww]

>> Unfortunately, this is how things work. Personally, I wouldn't want it any other way. If Amazon doesn't do this, then we are looking at the beginning of paying local taxes for online purchases. This is the only major draw for the consumer, because its a bit riskier, especially for larger purchases (tougher to return).

> And there in lies the problem. You just don't want to pay any taxes and you still want all the services that are provided to you by your local and state governments. You are completely shortsighted and self absorbed. When you do all of your business via mail order, and pay no taxes, what happens to your state and municipal government then?
>
> Did you ever think about that, or were you too caught up in the idea that your tax free shopping loophole was going away?

I make my living from consumer confidence in shopping online, so I'm going to tend to support policies and laws that encourage that.

Then I pay for the portion of government services by paying income tax. Its seemed to be working so far. I prefer income taxes to sales taxes. I'm usually happy to vote for local and state income and property tax increases.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this any different than mail order or phone order businesses?

Bravo North Carolina.

[maillemaker]

>Bravo to North Carolina for calling these online retailers to be responsible.

Hope they enjoy no Amazon-related resellers operating in their state.

Taxes are how states compete for business. Raise taxes on a business that can operate anywhere else and avoid the tax, guess what? They are leaving town.

Re:Bravo North Carolina.

[Anonymous Coward]

Taxes are how states compete for business. Raise taxes on a business that can operate anywhere else and avoid the tax, guess what? They are leaving town.

Taxes are also how states pay for such nice things as roads, schools, police and fire. As more and more companies pull stunts like this to avoid paying their fair share, the difference will likely be made up by raising taxes on individuals. That, or they can just start making you provide your credit card number before sending out the fire department to save your home.

Re:Bravo North Carolina.

[larry bagina]

Aside from taxes, they also help set the general business climate. Right to work, beaurocracy, regulations, etc. Of course, the same attitude that produces high taxes also produces an unfavorable economic climate for anyone who isn't rich and liberal, in the name of everyone else who suffers for it. While most states are seeing budget shortfalls in the recession/depression, the ones that are suffering the most previously drove out businesses and expanded government largess.

Re:Bravo North Carolina.

[David Greene]

Taxes are how states compete for business.

That's a very twisted view of taxation and its purpose. States/cities/counties/etc. don't complete based on tax rates. Studies have demonstrated that over and over. The competition is based on infrastructure and quality of life -- is there adequate transportation for employees and goods, is there a well-educated workforce, is there a thriving arts culture (yes, smart businesses look for this!).

And guess what? A state provides none of this without taxes.

Re:Bravo North Carolina.

[JoeRandomHacker]

That, or they can just start making you provide your credit card number before sending out the fire department to save your home.

No problem. Just sign up for 1-Click purchasing at Amazon.com, and they will punch-through your purchase to your local fire department affiliate.

Re:Bravo North Carolina.

[amicusNYCL]

If you think a company looks at the arts culture before looking at the local tax structure then you're delusional.

Imagine a CEO in front of a meeting of shareholders, and they're asking him why all of their dividends just fell. His answer is because he wanted to move his company into a state with a "thriving arts culture", even though he's now paying twice as much to do business there. How much are his shareholders going to care about the arts culture in a city they don't live in?

Here's a question: why are so many companies based in Delaware? Is it because Delaware has a "thriving arts culture", or is it because Delaware is once again in the top 10 states for favorable business tax environments in 2009?

Re:Bravo North Carolina.

[nschubach]

Then people have the right to pack up and move. It's a very fine balance with taxes. ;) This is the way it should be. Let the states fight for companies AND people to pay their salaries. Competition does work. If NC wants to raise money by raising taxes instead of cutting costs, it's their loss.

Re:Bravo North Carolina.

[nschubach]

Yes, but if another state can provide what they need without as many taxes, then they've just competed for business. If South Carolina can provide roads, education, and arts facilities cheaper than North Carolina... that's competition. Amazon looked at the taxes they'd have to pay and they realized it wasn't a smart business decision to stay.

It's all a matter of abstraction. Directly they may have no effect on selecting a location of business, but the actions of the state indirectly affect tax rates and infrastructure costs. If a state is paying more for health care than another state and passing that off to the corporations, the corporations have all the right to not do business there. The people in that state may be getting good health care, but they will be paying more for goods purchased now because any company willing to put up with higher taxes is going to pass that along to the customer. Ergo, taxes = competition for good businesses.

With the internet as competition, they will soon find that they need to reduce those taxes or risk losing citizens who are fed up paying more because of the state they live in.

Re:Bravo North Carolina.

[Changa_MC]

...raising taxes on individuals.

All taxes are paid by individuals. You think the money Amazon pays comes from the atmosphere?

Re:Bravo North Carolina.

[Artifakt]

You keep using the word company, but talking about a specific subtype, the publicly traded corporation. There are lots of corporations incorporated in Delaware, not so many partnerships or sole proprietorships. Delaware presents a favorable corporate tax environment, not necessarily a favorable overall business tax environment, and so on. It could be a perfectly sensible strategy for a state to court businesses that aren't publicly traded corporations ahead of ones that are.
    However, there are federal laws and court decisions that make it nearly impossible for a state to act in ways that favor, say, locally based businesses, or employee owned corps without common stock. Publicly traded corporations have made damned sure they aren't going to be discriminated against even where it might be a logical balance for the areas where they are given the advantages by law.
      One of the results of this is the large number of people, such as you, who think the word company and the phrase 'publicly traded corporation' are essentially interchangeable concepts.

Re:Bravo North Carolina.

[TheoMurpse]

Imagine a CEO in front of a meeting of shareholders, and they're asking him why all of their dividends just fell. His answer is because he wanted to move his company into a state with a "thriving arts culture", even though he's now paying twice as much to do business there. How much are his shareholders going to care about the arts culture in a city they don't live in?

Point taken, although, to be fair, shareholders would care insomuch as the beautiful surroundings help attract better employees.

There's a reason there isn't a Silicon Plains in Kansas: because the best techies would rather live near the beach (or near Stanford, as it were), nerd stereotypes aside.

Re:Bravo North Carolina.

[Just Some Guy]

The competition is based on infrastructure and quality of life -- is there adequate transportation for employees and goods, is there a well-educated workforce, is there a thriving arts culture (yes, smart businesses look for this!).

That's all well and good for a high-tech manufacturer. For the other 99.99% of employers, tax rates are critical decision items. If opening a plant in one state instead of its neighbor means an automatic 5% drop in overhead, the cheaper state will win every time.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[Attila Dimedici]

It is not the online retailers that are leaching, it is the people who buy from them and don't pay the tax themselves. Do you have any idea what a nightmare it would be for a small online retailer if they had to figure out what sales tax to charge on every transaction in every locality in the country. I am surprised that Amazon didn't shut down all of their NY affiliates because NY has one of the most nightmarish sales tax setups for any retailer without a fixed location. "Yes, I know this is the Syracuse Convention Center, but it is not actually in the City of Syracuse, so the sales tax is 7.25% not 7.5%. You have been defrauding these people, even though you were going to pay all the tax you collected to the state of NY."

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[Duradin]

The Balkanization of commerce isn't a good thing.

Amazon pays its taxes. Get Amazon to head quarter in your community and then you'll get its tax money.

The overhead of tracking tax codes down to the city level (and keeping up to date) would be overwhelming. The only winning move in this case really is not to play and that's what Amazon did.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[Todd Knarr]

OK then, riddle me this: what is the sales tax rate for any address in the US? Note that you can't stop at the city plus ZIP code level, in San Diego County there are ZIP codes that're partly in a city (where city sales tax applies) and partly outside the city (where city sales tax does not apply). Where can a company go to find out authoritatively what the sales tax rate is for a customer address? I don't know of any, and it's just not reasonable to require a company to pay sales tax without giving them a way to find out how much sales tax they're supposed to collect.

good for amazon!

[superwiz]

Finally some business demonstrating some balls. If the tax is being considered, then the locality has an environment hostile to Amazon's business. It doesn't matter if it goes through. The fact that they see nothing wrong with their hostile attitude is enough of a reason for Amazon to declare that they will have nothing to do without them. No business with bullies -- not even with those who associate with bullies by living in their tax base. Good for them!

Re:good for amazon!

[Just Some Guy]

Finally some business demonstrating some balls. If the tax is being considered, then the locality has an environment hostile to Amazon's business. It doesn't matter if it goes through.

It's also a good deterrent against other states trying the same BS. They know that Amazon isn't afraid to follow through.

Re:good for amazon!

[jwhitener]

Finally?

Companies have been firing US work forces and moving overseas for decades. Thats pretty ballsy if you ask me.

Amazon didn't do this to prove some great moral point. It is business pure and simple.

Re:good for amazon!

[superwiz]

Good! That's precisely what they should do. A business taking care of business is the only ethical thing they can do. Their responsibility is to their shareholders and their customers. Period. Their employees and affiliates are the people they may chose to hire to assist them in fulfilling their responsibilities to their shareholders and their customers. The moment they try to assume any "social responsibility", they'll become hypocrites. They owe their allegiance to those who pay them. If they ever put those who don't pay them in front of those who do, they'll become thieves.

Re:good for amazon!

[jwhitener]

That is absolutely correct, when you are talking about a single business interest competing in a single environment.

When multiple corporations join under an umbrella corporation, what can happen is less than 'free market ideal'. This is totally outside the point of the parent topic:), but I think it is worth reflecting on.

Lets say that 'mega corp X' is made up of corps A,B, and C.

If A and B are profitable but using resources that C could use, and C is more profitable, 'mega corp' might decide to stifle the gains of A and B, in order to promote C.

I'm too tired to provide a real world example, but I'm sure you could find one if you wish. The point being, a completely, absolutely free market, can stifle innovation.

"A business taking care of business is the only ethical thing they can do"

There are many shady areas where 'taking care of business' does not result in a net gain for society at large.

There are a couple things that I think would completely change the world in a good way:
1. 100% of campaigns get funding from public sources if they obtain a required signature count, and...
2. Corporations are held accountable (like they should be) as individuals in the ecosystem.

I won't elaborate more unless more responses happen, but I just wanted to balance the prior post which was obviously a very free market position.

Re:good for amazon!

[superwiz]

You are addressing a non-issue in this case (and you alluded to that, but you may have tried to brush it off). Amazon is dealing with affiliates.

While you try to point the less-than-ideal use of resources in an anti-competitive situation (ie, single owner of multiple competitors), this is not the case with affiliates. Interactions within one owned entity is internal transfer of resources. Interactions between affiliates are still transactions. The only thing that differentiates them from transactions with non-affiliates is that a pre-existing protocol for transacting is in place which speeds up processing. The competition is still in full force among affiliates because transactions are subject to contracts and taxes (whereas interactions among branches of a corporation are not).

What further makes the market MORE competitive is that affiliations are as easily severed as business relationships with non-affiliated players, whereas no simple mechanism for severability exists between branches of a corporation.

As for your attempt to justify putting public interest before shareholders or customer's interest, you slip in a double-edged sword in there to justify it. No private enterprise should be receiving public funds unless they are paid under a contract for a service to be performed or as debt obligation. Anything else is theft of public funds by the government.

The enterprise receiving the funds would be as much a victim of this situation as the general public. It creates a murky level of responsibility which is not agreed-upon at the time the funds are received. A level of responsibility which would almost certainly result in a future demand for performance and for consideration of public interest before the interest of those to whom the enterprise did make concrete commitments (ie, shareholders and customers). Since such arrangement of priorities must be considered theft, these "free public funds" almost guarantees that at some future date the enterprise will be acting and consequently treated as near-criminal.

Lastly, a monopoly situation is not a free market situation because it attempts to substitute centralized planning for competitive behavior. It is in its essence socialist. That's right, I am saying that all monopolies are socialist institutions just as much as all socialist institutions are monopolies.

Rather than giving the government the draconian power to investigate and decide on when monopolies should be broken up, the much simpler solution is to remove the mechanism which allows them to emerge. Simply removing corporate merger as a legally-sanctioned action would do just that. All the arguments for efficiencies of scale are moot because efficiencies of scale can be taken advantage of through.... wait for it.... affiliate programs.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[infinite9]

amazon has feet?

Yes. They are unde-feet-ed.

Stimulus

[Weeksauce]

I know, lets use some of that stimulus money to keep these companies afloat! You know, that stimulus money that was supposed to be paid for by the taxes that they want to impose...

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[LordKaT]

Right, because it's not bad enough that the affiliates in North Carolina are already taxed on their earnings, but now they have to be taxed on the sales they refer to Amazon? You're talking taxing the same people three times on every sale (Local, State, and Affiliate). Let's not mention the bigger affiliates that are taxed 5 times (2x corporate earnings taxes, IRS personal, State personal, Affiliate)

Oh, and yes, the IRS and states tax the shit out of individuals in business. I don't know where people get the idea of mystical business tax relief, because if you're in business and playing by the law, you don't get a refund check, you send in a damn check every fiscal quarter.

Without any kind of business expenses, I would be taxed 89% on every dollar I made. eighty. nine. fucking. percent. And I'm just barely hovering around the poverty line doing this shit. Then you and your backwards populist shitheads yell at me for not spending money to better myself on college, or buying a car, or some other bullshit.

If your community is in such a dire condition that they absolutely need to tax a person a third time on the same dollar, then your community is completely fucked, needs to be dissolved, have its assets liquidated, and a new structure put in place.

In short: go fuck yourself.

Moving from NC to NJ for tax reasons?

[geoffrobinson]

Now that would be a man bites dog story. As NJ residents, we should always have our eyes out for other tax jurisdictions.

Re:Moving from NC to NJ for tax reasons?

[EvanED]

OT, but what war ended communism?

Re:Moving from NC to NJ for tax reasons?

[superwiz]

Korean War is the only one I can think of (it prevented Communism from spreading into South Korea).

Re:Moving from NC to NJ for tax reasons?

[realnrh]

World War Three. After that one, there's not much left to form an economy from anyhow.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[CopaceticOpus]

Well, of course. They sell everything.

A question for any legal geeks

[goffster]

Can a company move to a US territory and still get all the perks ?
i.e. Puerto Rico ?

Re:A question for any legal geeks

[BitZtream]

No, thats why its a territory and not a state, the laws are different among other things.

Re:A question for any legal geeks

[SnarfQuest]

If enough companies do this, I'm sure Obama will fix that for you. The government needs those tax revenues so it can give away all that money to companies that donated to his campaign.

Re:A question for any legal geeks

[TheSync]

The minimum wage in American Samoa used to be less than the standard Federal rate, but that is changing now.

On the other hand, the recent recovery bill allows American Samoa tuna canners special tax breaks.

Re:A question for any legal geeks

[eightball]

Define what "the perks" are and maybe someone will be able to address them specifically..
Defense.. check
Constitutional protections.. check
Varying levels of services depending on where you go.. check

Re:A question for any legal geeks

[goffster]

Sure,

What specifically is disallowed by being in a U. S. territory ? I know they get no seat in the house or senate. What else?

Does a particular company suffer in any way by being located in a territory as opposed to a state?

Tough Shit

[Anonymous Coward]

Kudos to Amazon for making a decision and implementing it. Interstate commerce is hardly mandatory, and it sounds like there are some North Carolina lawmakers that need to get their heads held in a toilet and have it flushed a few times until they get the message.

Re:Tough Shit

[BitZtream]

For Amazon, interstate commerce is most certainly mandatory, as is global.

Mail order has always been considered a loophole, but wasn't really that big of an income loss in general as it didn't account for that much revenue.

The Internet has changed that, mail order now accounts for a significant amount of sales that previously would have occured in state.

Amazon isn't paying the tax from sales in NC to its own state.

Amazon isn't paying the tax from sales in NC to anyone. Free rides are nice, but reality says this wasn't going to last forever.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[JesseMcDonald]

I think you need to make your sarcasm a bit more obvious. Someone might get the impression that you actually agreed with NC on this issue. That would, of course, be utterly ridiculous--but given the kinds of people one meets online it's hard to be certain, and not every detects sarcasm well.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[twistedcubic]

The overhead of tracking tax codes down to the city level (and keeping up to date) would be overwhelming.

They could put them all in an online computer database?

Amazon Shrugs

[slowgreenturtle]

Wow, people are upset because a company won't submit to being taxed? Sure is tacky of Amazon not to roll over for government money grabs.

Re:Amazon Shrugs

[TheAngryMob]

Beware the looters.

NC has no right to the money, but are going to grab it anyways. Get the businesses to come to your state, not chase them away. Has no state learned California's lesson?

Re:Amazon Shrugs

[Talderas]

I think Michigan is a more apt example.

Re:Amazon Shrugs

[BitZtream]

WTF?

NC has no right to levy taxes against goods sold in its state? I'm sorry, what planet do you live on?

Has no state learned California's lesson?

What lesson is that? That if you enact laws to protect your environment and control companies who could give a flying fuck about you that those companies will indeed continue to sell products in your state and that people will indeed still want to move there at a ridiculous rate?

I pray to god our legislature takes the lesson California got.

North Carolina gets the right to tax the goods the very instant they enter the state. If you don't want to pay the NC state tax, don't enter the state. Its that simple. But Amazon is still going to happily sell to the state regardless of the taxing involved because its far more profitable to sell and pay the taxes than not sell at all. Its really not rocket science to see who the clear winner is in this battle. Its also fairly clear that Amazon is just acting like a bunch of dicks because it doesn't want to have to pay the cost of doing business in NC. The cost isn't the tax, which will just be passed directly to the consumer. The cost is simply making their system capable of dealing with ... tax tables ... Which, QuickBooks does, so I'm pretty sure Amazon can handle it. If not, I really don't want them doing business in my state anyway, they'll probably fuck up the rest of my order too if they think its hard to calculate, accrue and account for sales tax. Funny how walmart.com has no problem doing the work.

Unfair?

[sjames]

The legislator claims it's not fair that brick and mortar stores collect sales tax and Amazon doesn't. I say the brick and mortar collects taxes according to ONE tax structure in ONE place. What's fair about an out of state retailer having to understand potentially thousands of sales tax structures in many different combinations? Not to mention then needing to keep books on thousands of accounts to make sure the various state and local tax collectors get said taxes.

Unless and until the various legislatures are willing to get together on a simple clearing house to make it easy for retailers to figure out how much to collect and where to send it, they have little choice but to not do business in places that insist on it.

NC is already proving that such questions could be hard to answer. Whose taxes do we collect, the billing address? the ship to address? The address where the affiliate's server is located? NO! We must collect for the physical address of the person who owns the affiliate site. At least this week. No doubt the eventual answer (at least the one legislators will want) is ALL OF THE ABOVE AND MORE! In all different amounts with a whole table full of thresholds, percentages, and exceptions. OH, and different addresses to send the checks to with different required documentation and forms to fill out. Each and every one of them will claim that their tax is very simple and effortless to collect. None will recognize that the sheer volume and lack of standardization makes the matter impossible.

Re:Unfair?

[BitZtream]

What's fair about an out of state retailer having to understand potentially thousands of sales tax structures in many different combinations?

Its called the cost of doing business in that state. Its part of being able to do business in that state. NC isn't requiring Amazon sell in NC, but it is going to contribute taxes if it sells in NC. The choice is free for it to make. NC won't really suffer without Amazon. Amazon will suffer without NC, and the cost of figuring out the taxes for people in NC compared the revenue Amazon will make selling in NC over the next month makes it a joke.

The keep books on thousands of accounts ANYWAY. QuickBooks can deal with taxing properly between sales in states, I'm pretty sure Amazon can handle it without noticing the cost. If they can't, perhaps they should by QuickBooks since a $99 app seems to have more functionality than the accounting system used by someone who plays global retailer for everything.

Walmart does taxes for every state in the union, they seem to be able to do it. I'm pretty sure Amazon can do it too, without a lot of effort.

If you want to take money from the state, you're going to have to play be the same rules, sorry your cheats are being taken away but that shit just happens as people catch on.

Re:Unfair?

[TinBromide]

Don't forget that a brick and mortar calls the local police department if there is a guy with a gun there, calls the local fire department if there is a fire, pulls employees with educations from local schools, relies on local roads and possibly benefits from laws passed in local business' favor. There are a whole slew of benefits provided to brick and mortars that aren't provided to websites. Amazon should say "Yeah, I'll charge state sales tax if you set up an NC PD and NC FD nearby to take care of my offices, set up a set of schools near by and pave my campus roads."

Re:Unfair?

[LeeMeador]

I agree with the legislator. Let's remove all those unfair sales taxes the brick-and-morter companies have to collect from their customers. Let's do it right away.

Re:Unfair?

[DavidTC]

I'm pretty sure NC did, in fact, pave the roads that Amazon is using to deliver books, unless Amazon has a giant catapult somewhere.

Re:Unfair?

[DavidTC]

As has been pointed out below, Walmart sells things online at walmart.com. Walmart has a physical presence in every state, and hence pays sales tax for online purchases for every single state.

The real funny joke is that all state sales taxes are always applicable. But they're on buyers. The courts have ruled that said states can't only force businesses to collect them for the buyer is if the business has a physical presence there, but that, frankly, is rather stupid. Regardless, the taxes are owed by someone.

I really think it would be entirely reasonable to drop the concept of physical presence and simply let all states require businesses selling to people in their state collect the taxes that the state is actually legally owned, but the buyer almost never actually pays.

It would be interesting for state governments to start cracking down on this, actually going around to their citizens and collecting the taxes from them, and fining for failing to pay them in the first place. We'd soon have people screaming to require out-of-state businesses to collect and pay the taxes for them.

That said, NC's behavior is idiotic. A fundamental rule of sales tax is it happens in one jurisdiction per purchase. It happens in the buyer's jurisdiction if the business has a physical presence, or nowhere if they don't.

NC, by trying to claim the transaction between it and the affiliate is a separate transaction also subject to sales tax, is trying to tax the actual transaction on top of that. A referral, however, is not a sale, it is a contractual transfer of money for a service. In theory, that transfer of money is taxable, but it sounds like NC is trying to tax the entire purchase, which is insane.

Re:Unfair?

[sjames]

They paved the roads UPS uses to deliver the books. In turn, UPS pays for vehicle registrations which pays for those roads.

Re:Unfair?

[sjames]

Clearly, Amazon has decided that the NC tax code is just too kooky and have terminated their NC affiliates.

Note that Walmart does NOT deal with paying multiple taxes to multiple different states for a single transaction as NC would have anyone with an affiliate program do.

As for Quickbooks, as far as I know, it doesn't integrate with web apps. Given the way it expects whoever runs it to have permissions to overwrite the executable, I'd say it's for the best if it remains that way.

Re:Unfair?

[BitZtream]

Then why does Walmart have no problem with it?

They only need the address of the affiliate, that makes it far simpler.

We have these things, called computers, that are abso-fucking-lutely awesome when dealing with numbers and table look ups and mundane repeated calculations.

Amazon has this massive cluster of computing power that they have SO MUCH SPARE they sell the extra for profit. But they don't have the software or processing power to basically due what ever dumb POS system and mechanical cash register have done for god knows how long?

I know this is going to sound amazing, but at one point in time, people calculated taxes .... IN THEIR HEAD ...

Yes there is a lot of volume, but guess what, thats what Amazon is ALL about, doing business in volume.

If every other business in the world is capable of dealing with these issues it seems a little odd that Amazon can't, considering who they are and what they do, its mind boggling that anyone could argue 'its hard', which is really all this is.

Re:Unfair?

[BitZtream]

But Amazon won't pay those taxes.

I will, as an NC resident.

Amazon won't take the hit for any tax, ever.

You'll just have a new line below your subtotal that says 'NC State Sales Tax'. You know, just like every other transaction in NC has.

Guess what, I already AM required to do that! NC already requires me to pay sales tax on items purchased out of state via mail order.

So now the difference is simply that if Amazon wants to do business in NC, then it is responsible for collecting those taxes and paying them to the appropriate office.

The price doesn't change at all. To anyone, just who is responsible for dealing with it.

So lets see, do I want my state trying to deal with tax submissions from all of its residents in 18 different ways, enforcing those collections and all the other management that goes with it. No, I'd be much fucking happer to have the storefront do it. Just like every other person who sells in NC does.

So you think Amazon has the 'right' to sell in North Carolina, but none of the 'responsibilities'?

I'm not aware of any clear minded sane person who would ever, for even an instant, think that any 'right' comes with 0 'responsibility'. There are people that think that way, we call them spoiled brats here.

Re:Unfair?

[sjames]

You've never had to modify business logic in a live app, have you?

Walmart has no problem with the NC tax because they don't have an affiliate program.

Yes, all Amazon needs to do is modify, test, and then deploy their software so it can compute taxes based on which affiliate referred the sale to them (if any). Then they add a new account to collect those finds and a new back-end program to produce whatever audit/documentation is required. Note that there is no other case where the physical address of the affiliate website matters to the taxes, so they'll be doing it just for NC.

I am well aware that people computed taxes in their head. They did so for ONE location and don't need to know where the customer lives to do it. It's based on where THEY are.

Nobody said they can't, just that they'd rather drop their NC affiliates than do so.

Their reward for that will be more states creating new taxes based on their whims that they get to develop and deploy for. Once all 50 have that, then the counties and every tiny podunk town in the U.S. will demand their arbitrary tax rules as we, no doubt without providing a database in any sane form so they can determine who lives in Kooksville.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[Chabil Ha']

Too bad it has to be that way, but it is much easier to kill a bill than to kill the resultant law. I hope NC's (attempted) money grab was worth it.

It's happening in a few states

[Anonymous Coward]

Got the email that it will happen shortly here in Hawai'i too.

What about NY?

[TheNinjaroach]

Where was Amazon when New York passed a similar law? I guess cutting off the entirety of NYC from Amazon.com would prove to be too costly, so they wait for a smaller (and therefore less profitable) state before they decide to play political hardball. It is Amazon's right to pick and choose their battles, I just can't help but think the US would be better off if they would have started this with the first state to try such a stunt rather than picking on the easiest.

Re:What about NY?

[HarrisonFisk]

NY state does a tax on residents that purchase things from someone online with a NY affiliate. So if I live in NY (which I actually do) and buy an item from Amazon then I have to pay tax on it. This only affects the people of NY.

From what I understand the proposed NC law actually says that anything sold to anyone via an NC affiliate link would need to be taxed. So if someone lived in PA and bought something from Amazon, if they went through a NC affiliate link, it would be taxed by NC. This is not only taxing those items purchased by NC residents, but also people in other locations.

To make matters worse, if I lived in NY and then bought something via an NC affiliate, it would be taxed by both NY and NC.

This is why I suspect that Amazon cutoff the NC affiliates but not the NY ones.

Re:What about NY?

[Pollardito]

The article indicates that they sued in NY for a similar law and lost, but are continuing legal challenges there. It doesn't sound like they cut off referrals though.

What's ridiculous is that this law doesn't seem to tax based on the location of the seller or the buyer, but instead on the location of the referrer. Sales tax is supposed to be a tax on the buyer, and it just happens to be the responsibility of the seller to collect it. So NC is trying to charge a sales tax of a buyer that isn't a resident.

It might sound sensible to take a cut of that referral money (since that's the party that's in state), but they're already taxing that by charging income tax to the referrer.

Re:What about NY?

[RobNich]

All of that is correct. In addition, there are other states and localities where Amazon has a physical presence and therefore already collects sales tax for those sales. I live in such an area. There's an Amazon warehouse about 10 miles from my house, I believe it's in my county. When I purchase from Amazon, they have to tax me on the sale regardless of whether they are shipping it from that warehouse.

Re:What about NY?

[realnrh]

They aren't cutting any customers off. What they're cutting off is sellers going through the Amazon Affiliates program. It would be very different.

Re:What about NY?

[b4dc0d3r]

I would bet my house that given the chance, they would go back in time and do the same thing in NY. When it came up a second time, they tried a different tactic rather than lose in another state.

And even if they do lose, the next time they send warning letters affiliates are going to scream bloody murder.

And who in the fuck modded this insightful? It reads like a conspiracy theory. You're saying they had this plan and didn't execute it because it's new york of all places - do you have any evidence at all? An e-mail or a text message of someone's brother's uncle saying they overheard someone fart and it sounded like "Wit until N.C. tries this"?

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[frank_adrian314159]

Do you have any idea what a nightmare it would be for a small online retailer if they had to figure out what sales tax to charge on every transaction in every locality in the country.

Sounds like a simple change requiring a couple new database tables linking postal code, tax rates and exemption booleans to product ID, a couple of administrative web pages to modify the data and view a tally of taxed items being sold, and a few changes to the cart checkout to add/display the tax amount. In fact, much of this could be integrated as a third party online web-service package (i.e., tax rate maintenance, calculation and, perhaps (for a small surcharge), even tally of taxes owed on sold items and remission to various states).

Right now, BaM small businesses need to do this for in-state tax (and those on state boundaries need to handle customers who cross state lines to shop). There's no reason why this can't be made efficient for multiple tax zones. In fact, it's probably an opportunity for someone to set up a service bureau to do this.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[David Greene]

It's not. They should pay their taxes as well.

I live in NC

[ph0rk]

And I think anyone claiming to be "blind sided" is either full of it or a whiner, possibly both.

Also: the way to fix it isn't talking to a media outlet, it is talking to someone in Raleigh. (no, not a media outlet in Raleigh).

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[ae1294]

OK then, riddle me this: what is the sales tax rate for any address in the US?

I've had to deal with sales tax in both Virginia and North Carolina. The truth of the mater is they don't want you to know what the current tax rate is because they make more money when they audit your small business and apply fines a couple years later.

In Virginia my business was fined for not anticipating our GROSS income correctly. We GROSSED more money one year and because of that we had to pay the tax difference plus a couple thousand in fines. I'm just happy we had a CPA because the tax people where screaming murder until I said they would need to talk with our CPA then they where much nicer...

Small business owner's really can't win by playing by the rules...

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[frank_adrian314159]

So set up a service bureau to sell the data with online access if necessary. It's not that hard. There are companies that collect and sell medical, drug, legal, and tax law information already. I'm sure Intuit could come up with an add-on service for state and local tax rates based on address.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[sunking2]

There is plenty of services and software available that handles this almost perfectly. Its 2009, do you think we can't handle a simple address to tax code translation? There are tons of databases that work off street address to tax, and some that even go address -> long/lat -> tax code.

It's not that big a deal and brick and morter businesses that ship have been doing it for ages. Why is it suddenly so difficult for online stores?

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[ciggieposeur]

Where can a company go to find out authoritatively what the sales tax rate is for a customer address?

Wouldn't it be the computer's address rather than the customer's address?

If I go to the town next door and buy coffee, I pay 1% extra sales tax. Why can't people over there come to my house and use my computer (with their account) and get a lower sales tax rate?

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[David Greene]

Do you have any idea what a nightmare it would be for a small online retailer if they had to figure out what sales tax to charge on every transaction in every locality in the country.

Well, we have the internet, databases and computers. Automating this would not be difficult at all. States/cities/etc. would submit their tax rates based on GIS data and the federal government could maintain a database searchable by merchants. If the local units don't accurately represent their sales tax rates, then the onus is on them to fix it.

The technology is not a problem here. We can solve that problem. The real problem is a culture of disinvestment in our communities.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[squallbsr]

They have these databases available, at a cost. You can pay through the nose for a solution from Vertex Inc, but of course that adds a whole big chunk of change to a company's operating costs (more servers and more annual fees for software) which gets passed down to the consumer in addition to the tax hike.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[David Greene]

GIS works quite well for this kind of thing. It wouldn't be hard to setup a database for this purpose (see comment above).

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[erroneus]

Yes, it is unfortunate that N.C. sellers had to suffer for it, but I have to agree with Amazon's action on this. At every turn, government at all levels seek more and more money rather than taking a hard look at where they are spending it. Ultimately, I believe, they simply want more money to vote themselves higher pay and to return favors of their campaign donors. I wish there were a better way to run government. I vaguely recall one or more SciFi movies in the past where a city became a business or something to that end... the prospect was frightening, but I have to wonder if such a project were applied properly, if it wouldn't be run more efficiently. One problem with current styles of government is that there is little to no incentive to save money or to use it wisely. They have no profit motive and clearly no personal integrity or desire to serve motives. So I have to wonder, what motives would cause governments at local, state and even federal levels to deliver "good service" to the people at the lowest cost possible?

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[davester666]

Um, nowadays, US (and IMO, to a lesser extent, European and Asian) corporations, they are primarily looking at their numbers for the current quarter, and the next quarter. This will have a negative effect on the numbers, so they are trying to mitigate that effect.

It's also not solely Amazon's "fault". The citizen's of the state are (probably) required to declare these out-of-state purchases and pay taxes on them directly to the local and/or state governments. So the citizens could actually be guilt of criminal tax evasion, but this 'crime' is both probably widespread AND would be extremely unpopular for the state tax collector to actively prosecute. So, the citizen's are choosing slightly cheaper prices over paying for their local roads and schools.

It's just orders of magnitude easier for the state tax collector to get the money from a few large entities (like Amazon), who have pretty good accounting systems about who bought how much and where it was shipped to, than for them to try to get all their residents to individually track and then declare/pay taxes on these purchases at the end of each year.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[BitZtream]

No, you have it all wrong. As a North Carolina citizen I can educate you ...

We have the solution. We give large internet companies (Google) tax breaks to do business here and provide jobs. And in order to encourage other businesses to move into North Carolina, we tax them on all their sales made to North Carolina, regardless of where they are located.

As you can see this is a truely brillient plan. Every well managed business would want to move to North Carolina since you can get the tax break and not have to pay. Since no other state has allowed such a brillient idea, the companies operating in NC don't have to worry about taxes from other states, but all the operations in other states are liable to NC.

Okay okay, so this is one of those moments that makes me understand why surrounding states tend to refer to people here as 'ignorant pig farmers'. I would like to point out that pig farmers aren't that stupid and this sort of thing could only be accomplished by the supreme intelligence of politicians.

If you've been watching the news recently and noticed, we have some down right AWESOME politicians.

Bear with us, the trendy 'I HATE BUSH' crowd thought it out long and hard and proudly elected an even more inept and mentally deficient batch of politicians than that last time around. Unfortunately we have too many universities and people who vote based on some ideological theory rather than reality.

Okay, fine, don't bear with us. Just please don't hold it against me personally, I'm leaving as fast as I can!

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[fracai]

amazon has feet? are they for sale?

They were, but they've been soled.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[BarryJacobsen]

The overhead of tracking tax codes down to the city level (and keeping up to date) would be overwhelming. They could put them all in an online computer database?

So you're offering to make and update this database for free? No? You'd want to be paid to do it? Well how much would that cost? So roughly the amount of money that we make from doing business there or more? Nevermind, it's easier to just not do business there.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[Anonymous Coward]

So get back to us when you have that database worked out. Until that happens, Todd Knarr is right. Having the idea of a way to solve a problem is not a solution.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[Anonymous Coward]

"The fact is, online retailers have been leeching off communities for far too long. They make use of the infrastructure these communities provide but use tax evasion to make sure they don't contribute to its upkeep."

What infrastructure is Washington based Amazon using in North Carolina?

That's the rub. They aren't.

That is the whole point behind "No Nexus = no tax"

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[Maximum Prophet]

This shuts down any business that's too small to hire the service bureau. They exist. I know a guy who did $50 worth of photography business in one year. He claimed it to the IRS, and when he was audited, the auditor said, "You don't make much money on photography, do you?" (no sh*t)

The solution is to exempt really small businesses, but they don't want people to try to run 1000 small businesses that make less than $1000 each.

Go For It Amazon

[Nom du Keyboard]

Go for it Amazon! Put the finger in the dike now before we all get flooded out by greedy state governments whose legal justifications aren't even substantial enough to call flimsy. This is like Wal*Mart closing stores that go union because the problems of dealing with the issue overall far outweighs the losses from leaving a given market. I wish that the automobile makers had stood up to the State of California when they went completely nuts on the emissions regulations and instead of saddling us with thousands in additional new car costs, had simply said: "No new cars for you." Who do you think would have blinked first? The automakers? The state? Or the voters?

Yes I'm sorry that people are getting hurt along the way with this, but go out there and get your state back in order once more and this won't be happening.

Disclaimer 1: I sell on Amazon and I'm still all for this.
Disclaimer 2: I lived in California and breathed that air every day.

Re:Go For It Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

So emissions regulations are a bad idea? It's not like the "free-market" is going to self regulate on externalities like emissions.

Re:Go For It Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish that the automobile makers had stood up to the State of California when they went completely nuts on the emissions regulations

I think you missed the operative phrase there...

Re:Go For It Amazon

[BitZtream]

Yea, its fucking horrible that the people of California were too stupid to want to clean up their disgusting environment on their own so their government had to have the foresight to protect them from their own ignorance.

I think its absolutely horrible that the state government stepped in and did something about a problem that everyone now recognizes as a problem.

Disclaimer 1: I don't sell on Amazon and think this is utter bullshit and pure evil. I also don't buy from Amazon because, again they are pure evil so I'm obviously biased.
Disclaimer 2: Despite disclaimer 1, I can still safely say, you are an idiot, and its a damn good thing the California government is protecting you otherwise I'm pretty sure your contributions to the gene pool would end on their own sooner rather than later.

Its Clear Cut

[Anonymous Coward]

Any state that taxes interstate commers like the internet will find that its interstate customers have simply gone to another state where the prices are cheaper. There is no sales tax in Delaware, It may turn out that all Internet sales will on the end come out of states like Delaware. Or perhaps when Obama lifts the trade restrictions, we will buy stuff from Cuba.

No, it's this way...

[Nom du Keyboard]

the early shutoff seems to be a move in hopes of swaying opinion on the proposed legislation.

No, that's not correct. The early shutoff is to show that Amazon is truly serious about this and not just blowing smoke. There is now no doubt that Amazon isn't bluffing. NC will get no tax money from them.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[raftpeople]

Most companies use Vertex for this. I've used them in sell to consumer systems since early 90's.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[raftpeople]

Except that solutions have already existed for decades: Vertex

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[Anonymous Coward]

parent is right. according to this, at least some large percentage of /.ers are eligible for sarcasm detection assistance.

Why not New York?

[moosehooey]

Why didn't they do this in New York? I'm still being charged sales tax because they kept the affiliates.

Re:Why not New York?

[realnrh]

I believe that Amazon has a conventional physical presence in New York - they have to have offices somewhere, and lucky New York gets to play host (and charge the sales tax).

Re:Why not New York?

[DavidTC]

New York is charging sales tax to New York residents, which is entirely acceptable.

In fact, every state does this. If a business has a physical presence in the state, it has to collect the taxes and pay the taxes for the buyer, otherwise the buyer himself has to. (But no one does.)

What NC is trying to do, however, is apply sales tax when the buyer is not in the state. (Which, in turn, would require double sales tax if the buyer was somewhere like NY.)

They're doing this by claiming that the transaction with the affiliate somehow makes the entire thing happen in NC. Arguably, the payment to the affiliate, which is a tiny fraction of the purchase, could be taxable(1)...but that isn't what they're doing, they're trying to tax the entire purchase.

1) Although not via sales tax...that's a 'commission', and usually wouldn't fall under 'a sale', but rather under 'income'. People who work on commission do not pay 'sales tax' on what they get paid...the business collects sales tax on the entire amount, and they themselves pay income tax on what they get. (And people in NC collecting commissions from Amazon should already be paying income tax on it.)

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[Pollardito]

This isn't even new with the internet. Catalog sales are also only taxed if the seller has a presence in the state of the buyer. That's irrelevant to catalog sales for a company like Sears who has a presence most everywhere, but other regional companies have been selling nationwide via catalog and charging no taxes for decades. If they want to fix this I'm not sure they can do it on a state-by-state level, it'd seem to require some sort of a federal measure.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[superwiz]

Amazon does not use any resources provided by the local state government. And yet they would be expected to pay for them? That's called "theft". They use no public roads (delivery companies pay for those through gasoline taxes and vehicle registration payments). They use no police services (they have no physical presence in NC so they have nothing to protect there). They can't take advantage of NC education (since they don't live there, their children can't go to school there). And yet NC thinks they have the right to shake down Amazon? Every honest men hopes this withdrawal of Amazon affiliation takes as heavy toll on NC economy as possible. This type of punishment of thieves would only be just.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[Jaysyn]

I am intrigued by your ideas and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

This is a great opportunity

[skroops]

This is a great opportunity for someone to build an alternative North Carolina referrer network. This would have the effect of localizing the job that Amazon was doing, which can only strengthen NC. It's possible that most if not all of what was being offered at Amazon could be recreated; if there is a demand for a product, then maybe a local company can begin to fill that demand.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Without any kind of business expenses, I would be taxed 89% on every dollar I made. eighty. nine. fucking. percent.

Bullshit. If that were true, there would be no employers in NC.

Better plan - be state-neutral

[davidwr]

A better plan would be to warn all affiliates nationwide that their accounts would be terminated on the effective date of any such sales-tax legislation, along with a special alert to affiliates in states where there is pending legislation.

This way it wouldn't seem to be targeting NC affiliates.

Don't engage in active lobbying, only state facts - the fact of course being you will be shut down if this bill passes.

Then do it.

You may lose a state or two's worth of affiliates but other states will take notice.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[NineNine]

"Do you have any idea what a nightmare it would be for a small online retailer if they had to figure out what sales tax to charge on every transaction in every locality in the country."

As an online AND brick and mortar retailer, I can imagine. It would be DIFFICULT! I mean, you'd have to have some sort of computer program that accessed a table, geez, maybe HUNDREDS of records large, and then report to the business owners where to pay the tax to! I mean, it would take a good, 5-10 minutes for somebody to program, and it would have to be updated every few months. Whoa! Talk about an inconvenience.
That's a LOT more difficult than trying to run a brick-and-mortar store that pays significant amounts of taxes and having to compete against businesses that don't have to collect sales tax from their customers.

Please not this entire post was tongue in cheek. Except for this line. Oh, and the quote I was responding too... that was literal.

Re:What about NY? JUST DO IT!

[Nom du Keyboard]

Where was Amazon when New York passed a similar law? I guess cutting off the entirety of NYC from Amazon.com would prove to be too costly,

Maybe now that they've found their manhood again they will cut off NY once the legal challenges play out. I'd like to see it happen long enough to stop this from spreading any further. States are copycats about this kind of crap.

Other states too, like Hawaii.

[Shag]

I got a very similar email from Amazon, only it's about affiliates in Hawaii. It doesn't at all make it clear what they're upset about, and I don't remember there being any changes to Hawaii's general excise tax (which isn't the same as a sales tax) in, oh, the last decade or so.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[Entrope]

Taxes are not just determined by location; many times, taxes are also determined by type of goods, calendar date, or other aspects. "Type of goods" will also vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction: Large-tip markers might qualify for "back to school" tax holidays in one state, but not in the next state.

And if you think the onus to fix mistakes is ever going to be on government rather than on private parties, you're naive.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[QuantumRiff]

I disagree. Amazon should have waited to see if the law actually passed. Pulling out of a state because of a bill that is in debate is premature, and playing politics. They should have informed their affiliates of what would happen "IF" it passed, and heavily encouraged them to voice their opinions. Instead, they have pissed off the very people they need.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[evanbd]

Speaking as a resident of NC, I think this law is a bad idea. I'm of mixed mind on Amazon's response, but I can't really fault them for it. The NC government has budget problems; they need to either cut spending or raise taxes. Personally, I'm inclined to think they should do a bit of both. However, I really think they should just raise income taxes, rather than trying to find new taxes that people won't notice as much. Fewer, simpler taxes is a good thing.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[kaiser423]

Without any kind of business expenses, I would be taxed 89% on every dollar I made. eighty. nine. fucking. percent.

I call bullshit. Seriously. I've worked for a number of small companies, and I've never seen any loading or tax liability anywhere near that. What the hell are you doing wrong to get to 89% (my guess? He's calculating it horribly wrong).

Really, I would really like to know, because I would love to rally against it like nobody's business, but I just can't even come close to conjuring up a scenario where 89% is the actual tax liability.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[fooslacker]

So if you're an affiliate don't do business with Amazon if you don't like it. I'm not saying I think what Amazon did was a good thing but they have the right and they're making a strong point. You also have the right to not do business with them because you don't like how they do business. They vote with their feet you can vote with yours. I actually like to see this kind of thing not because I think Amazon should or shouldn't pay tax but because this is how the market is supposed to solve things.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[Anonymous Coward]

There are better ways to argue against a law than hurting people not responsible for it.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[PitaBred]

You make the assumption that those postal code and tax rate tables even exist. Every single city in the US can have various local taxes, combined with each county, and then state, and so on. Each tax different for different types of products. If you have a business operating in that county, you know what you need to charge and it is the only tax rate you need to charge. An online retailer trying to deal with taxes everywhere they could ship? Impossible. It's nowhere near as "simple" as you claim.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[rainmaestro]

It sounds like BS to me as well. I have family in NC who used to run a business there, and their taxes were nowhere close to 89%.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[db10]

Hmmm that sounds fishy.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[PitaBred]

Right. And get every city to update it with every tax bill they pass, each state, and so on. For each product type, when some jurisdictions call a soda a "snack" and tax it that way, while others call it a "food" and tax it another... tax codes are NOT simple. Local sellers only have to keep up with the exact spot that they're selling from. Online merchants have no way to reliably get all those numbers, and there's no realistic way to provide them without someone taking advantage of the system.

Too bad for some...

[hesaigo999ca]

I feel bad for the people with businesses at Amazon, but I find this the only way to make it clear to the gov.
that not because they pass a law which no one wants, that we have to put up with it, being the sheep that USA is
too often acting like, its people following blindly what the gov. says because they are the gov. and nothing else....
more companies should make it evident that they do not have to take it. Amazon will keep moving until
they are out of the US and are only in parts of the world without internet tax....!

Re:Too bad for some...

[BitZtream]

No real lose than is there to anyone is it?

Oh no... I can't buy from Amazon ... and there isn't any other business in my state that I can buy from like Amazon ... none at all ...

Of course, there are thousands of businesses in the state that offer, guess what, everything that Amazon does.

So Amazon moves to another country, won't happen any time soon, but lets just pretend it does. How long do you think its going to be before there are taxes in other countries to deal with this sort of thing ... oh wait, what ? There already are other countries with taxes that deal with this sort of thing? You're kidding, and you mean countries other than the US tax goods coming into their country? You've got to be kidding me?!!?!?!?!

Unless you lie, you're already paying tax when items come into your country from others. You're probably just completely ignorant of the fact that you owe taxes on items purchased out of your country, but you most certainly DO owe them in the case of almost EVERY purchase you can possibly make outside your country.

Its easy to say 'haha look at the US, stupid slobs' when you're just completely ignorant of your own laws. Twit.

Re:Too bad for some...

[hesaigo999ca]

First off, the US being slobs is something you are saying...
I am saying the US politicians are greedy.

Secondly my GF is in import/export...so I hear alot more about the going ons of other countries and their importing taxes and such, compared to the average joe. I might dazzle you with alot of stories
about how most countries are trying to AVOID setting up too much taxes to entice the US citizens
to import rather then buy in their own country....but your mind is made up so I wont.

As for the taxes, I was merely saying what most people already think. What business does the government have taxing something on the internet where there is no real protection for the consumer.
When you buy from the internet, you have barely any real protection...get stolen from and go to the cops about this, it usually ends there...you get more action selling to a stolen item pawn shop
and having the cops rummage through there, then you do on the internet....why might you ask...because there are still many million computer illiterates out there.

If they were to take internet security more seriously (like extending consumer protection act unto the internet for internet transactions), then I would really advocate taxes on items. However, Amazon, or Visa or Paypal, and the buyer take all the risks when it comes time to extend credit for the purchase. If there is an investigation, it comes out of Visa, or Paypal's pocket, not the government. So why then would we pay money into this, when the whole reason for taxes is to better the government for the people...there is yet to be betterment on the internet for the people!

How many eStores have you set up, programmed or delt with, how many of those have you ordered from, and how many of those have you run, to give me a concerned opinion, or is this just a ranting and raving post?

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[AlHunt]

> ...and the federal government could maintain a database searchable ...

Sorry, I'm against anything requiring another federal government database.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[brainboyz]

That's been tried many times. People always ignore it until it's too late. By actively and immediately halting business, you can bet the affiliates will raise hell in a timely fashion.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[Attila Dimedici]

Right because you would be easily able to keep that database up to date with all of the changes in tax rate and what was taxable. Especially considering that my state has a fairly simple sales tax law and yet there is significant ambiguity about whether certain items are taxable(what is the difference between a "snack item" and a "food item").

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't disagree with you,... but I wonder why you and I aren't running for office.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[nschubach]

Well, if my Star Trek history lessons have anything to say, socialized government workers would be motivated by the thrill of politics and serving the people instead of their monetary needs, bu then you look at it from the perspective of the government official and see all those capitalist salaries and wonder why you are still in government when you can afford that yacht by working elsewhere.

They've already tried this in part with the benefits provided to them... for life, but people still seem to want more. This is why I believe socialism probably can't work as a basis for a country over a long period of time. Not with the free market.

Another proposition I heard about a while back was a complex computer program that determines the benefit and repercussions of a law before enacting it... basically turning government over to a computer. That has it's own disadvantages though. (Namely: People don't think logically. IE: a computer would see no advantage to keeping a mentally handicap person alive.)

What to do so that people are rewarded for good officiating and punished for improper actions? How about properly punishing them in the first place? Too many officials get away with things because of who they are. How many government officials have ever been stripped of their benefits packages for messing up and where do you draw the line of "messed up bad enough"?

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[Anonymous Coward]

There are better ways to argue against a law than hurting people not responsible for it.

I agree, but I think it is a bit much for you to claim the people of N.C. (whom are responsible for it, by voting the people whom passed this law into office and supported it by inaction) are hurting Amazon (A company who is not responsible for it) one little bit. Amazon will be fine, don't worry.

Oh, I get it, you meant that the other way around.. Ha, that's funny

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[Todd Knarr]

And Vertex costs how much? I have a philosophical objection to a government requiring companies to pay private entities merely to enable the company to comply with the law. The law isn't like private policies, it's not something you can just decide not to follow. You should be allowed to pay someone to help with the details if you want, but you should be able to comply with the law without outside help.

If a state wants to require companies that have no physical presence in that state to collect and remit it's sales taxes, then IMO that state should be required to make available from a single location/point-of-contact the exact correct sales tax rates for every location within that state, and those rates will be deemed to be true and accurate rates in the event of any dispute.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[I'm not really here]

Just think about what you said for a minute. Do you understand how often these changes in taxes occur at the State, City, County, Borough, Township, and other levels? Do you understand that not every tax can be tied to a zip code, and that some boroughs or cities encompass more than one zip? Do you realize that there is no effectual way to be 100% certain of this data at this time without having a physical office in the area keeping track of where each brick and mortar store is located?

Not all states have the same tax structure, not all states even have sales tax, for that matter. Even if someone set up office in every tax region, based solely on how the tax lines are drawn, and kept an up to date database for all of the effective taxes in those areas, the monthly cost of getting this daily updated database would likely far exceed my business's monthly income, and would effectively run me out of business. This would happen to hundreds if not thousands of other small-time operations that don't make much, but are side businesses increasing the income and spending in many many homes.

Now, what happens when you suddenly kill off a chunk of the expendable income of hundreds of thousands of homes? You suddenly have less money flowing in the economy. Right now is a stupid time to be doing anything that kills of expendable income.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[erroneus]

"Threatening" government with pulling out is often weak and empty and used far too often. Eventually, with all the posturing that goes on, someone has to make a move that is exact and meaningful. Amazon made a move rather than attempt to actually "play" politics through threats and posturing. So I have to disagree. Amazon is not playing politics. Surely they have taken into account that they would alienate some people in N.C. but they have to prove they are serious.

Amazon isn't sending lobbyists with bags of cash. Amazon isn't asking sellers to plea to the government. Doing so would, in fact, be playing politics. By making a decisive and definitive action, they are make their statement in the only clean and honest way possible. Begging and threatening politicians is only playing their game. To withdraw is the only way... unless you can think of another?

Undoing a law after it has passed is a good deal harder than preventing it from passing. The DMCA seems to be sticking around regardless of how frequently it is abused and how much it harms the people. It's a bad and unpopular law that could only have been passed in the way it was (subversively) and it's not going away. Amazon is speaking not only to N.C., but to every state of the union. Taxing the internet is a very bad idea just as a state seizing a domain name because the operators who do not operate in the same state is violating that state's law is a bad idea. States should never exceed their borders and yet attempt to do so at every opportunity.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[ink]

They have no profit motive and clearly no personal integrity or desire to serve motives.

Yes, clearly, all politicians lack personal integrity -- and if they had a profit motive they would be full of integrity. </sarcasm>

At every turn, government at all levels seek more and more money rather than taking a hard look at where they are spending it.

Wait, I thought they had no profit motive...

Perhaps North Carolina is upset because local business are closing due to the tax disparity? Amazon sneaks in as an interstate institution, and they know that if residents have to pay tax in addition to shipping, their customers will be more likely to patronize local business. The same places that provide property tax and pay for things like schools. I doubt this has anything to do with "campaign donors and higher pay", which sounds like knee-jerk AM radio conservatism.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[erroneus]

In the world of Star Trek, they don't have to work at all. Their food and shelter are all freely available as I understand it. There is no motivation to get rich because there is little consequence to one's survival. One doesn't fear for his family's future if his job is lost. His power isn't cut off for non-payment. At the core of every person seeking wealth, it is the consequence of not being wealthy that drives them.

This makes me think more of the monologue at the beginning of the original Planet of the Apes movie.

http://www.videosift.com/video/Planet-of-the-Apes-Taylors-Opening-Monologue-1968

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[BitZtream]

They didn't move out. The just stopped doing business with a select portion of their customer base. They still are selling to customers in North Carolina, they just aren't dealing with advertisers in North Carolina.

They are just bullying NC vendors in an attempt to get thier way and continue to use a loophole to avoid having to pay the same thing every other interstate business has to pay.

They don't have the balls to make an actual stand like you know, not selling to NC residents anymore.

This is just a 'we don't want to play fair so we're going to beat up your little sister' bullshit.

They aren't voting with their feet, they're extorting vendors in NC to vote for them. Big difference.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[MMC Monster]

About half of Robert Heinlein's later work had corporation-cities. Just look at _The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress_.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[lgw]

Philly has sales tax districts smaller than ZIP codes (known as street corner taxes). If you make a table of all disctinct taz zones in America, more than half of them are in Philly. Of course, they all change regularly. Still not a big deal - everyone who sells turnkey business systems has to deal with this in software - but really a pain in the ass.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[davek]

Do you have any idea what a nightmare it would be for a small online retailer if they had to figure out what sales tax to charge on every transaction in every locality in the country.

Sounds like a simple change requiring a couple new database tables ........

Every database developer had to stop reading at that point to wipe up the milk that just came spewing out their nose. A "new database table" is ever a "simple change".

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[Stradivarius]

I disagree. Amazon is looking out for their customers in the state (which BTW are the same people as "the community"). Of course this benefits Amazon as well, but they are not the only beneficiary.

Second of all... online retailers are not leeching off anyone via tax evasion. They have followed the law and paid the taxes that they are legally obligated to pay. That's called "complying with the law", not "tax evasion". There is no requirement, moral or otherwise, that anyone pay more than the law says you have to.

Third.... Many states exempt basic groceries from sales taxes, in part to help the less fortunate afford to eat. The government's decision to do so does not turn your local grocery store into a "leech". They're a business providing value to the community (few people want a community without a decent grocery store). Similarly, regardless of how the NC Legislature decides to raise money, Amazon is a business providing value to their customers (easier search and wider selection than a brick-and-mortar store).

But this isn't even about taxing NC residents' purchases. The fairness argument you make about local versus online businesses is about whether or not to tax NC resident's online purchases. But the article indicates that the Legislature is attempting more than that. It's trying to tax a transaction between customers and businesses who are both outside the state, simply because a NC resident referred those customers to the businesses. That's just the Legislature getting greedy (if they wanted to tax the referral fee itself, they could, and in fact do via the income tax... but they're trying to tax a sales transaction which itself is operating completely outside the state).

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[Anonymous Coward]

Guess we'll just have to figure out which is better; profit motive or prosperity motive. For all I've seen it's already the case where (corporate) business is run like a government and governments are run like businesses, the only differences between the various businesses and governments are the way votes are made by constituents/citizens and exactly how much power members of an organizations have over the owners.

We don't need you.

[Anonymous Coward]

You need us.

--
Amazon North American Sales Manager

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[BitZtream]

How and why is Amazon supposed to be treated differently than say, Walmart?

Walmart seems to be able to handle the tax issue, why is it Amazon can't do the same?

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[fishbowl]

>When something isn't in the Constitution, it then falls to the states to decide.

And the states cannot decide who does and who does not have a right to privacy.

My opinion doesn't rely on Roe v. Wade. I do not believe that a law proscribing abortion can be legal, because it applies only to women and therefore cannot provide equal protection to all genders.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[nschubach]

It's much cheaper for the company to just leave the state than it is to sign up for yet another third party vendor to manage it's tax locations database.

Thanks, Amazon!

[DrEldarion]

California's considering a similar bill very, very soon, and this will likely turn a few heads in Sacramento. Laws like this actually hurt the states - instead of bringing in extra revenue, they decrease revenue because people in those states lose income and then pay less in taxes.

The businesses can afford to walk away from the affiliates. The states can not afford to lose taxes from the people who get cut off.

Re:Thanks, Amazon!

[BitZtream]

Right, Amazon will continue this practice if the law passes ... they'll give up income because they have to pay tax on it ...

Are you fucking kidding?

Whats better:

Make $0 and not have to pay anything.

Or

Make $200,000,000 and pay $100,000 to the state.

I'm not Amazon, but I'm pretty sure I'd go ahead and take that extra $199,900,000 and move on, even if it costs me an extra $100,000 the first year to make my shitty accounting system do it. Of course, if their accounting system can't handle it, I suggest using QuickBooks, which interestingly enough seems to have no problem dealing with taxation in North Carolina, as well as every other state in the union. Seems odd that a global retailer couldn't deal with it.

Guess we're just going to have to switch to a federal sales tax that gets distributed to the states.

The states can not afford to lose taxes from the people who get cut off.

Sure they can. People will buy locally and pay taxes, no loss to the state in any way, and it actually does promote businesses IN the community. On the other hand, Amazon loses all revenue possible from that avenue.

I'm sorry, who was the loser again?

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[RareButSeriousSideEf]

Unfortunately, Amazon probably needed to demonstrate how serious they were, or NC might well have called their "bluff," leaving the affiliates out in the cold for much longer, if not permanently. Once some government erects a new law / regulation / tax / bureaucracy / program, it's harder to get rid of than mildew.

In fact, these things really are quite like an aggressive mildew. Do nothing, and they grow, advance, and encroach on your clean space. Work really really diligently and consistently, and you can sometimes beat them back to manageable levels. But get a little lazy once or twice, and boom... they're ba-ack, worse than ever.

If Amazon had merely warned their affiliates, there would be a big "yeah, right" factor on the affiliates' parts, and a big "yeah, right" factor on the legislators' parts. The tax might well pass, and Amazon's negotiating position would become that much weaker. Amazon *needs* big numbers of pissed off people -- really pissed off right this minute people -- to beat this thing. People who are merely imagining being pissed off in some potential future just don't act. Legislators need to see a thunderstorm, not a possible drizzle advisory; a storm of phone calls, not a flurry of tweets and a new Facebook group called "stop the tax."

With private economies shrinking but public spending expanding most everywhere, we are going to see more egregious tax grab strategies popping up more and more often over the coming months and years. The ones who don't get their pockets picked clean will be the ones who get brutal, or have someone get brutal on their behalf as Amazon did in this case.

 

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[Dr_Ken]

There are better ways to argue against a law than hurting people not responsible for it.

Some times you have to. And when people get pissed and make their displeasure known to the pols changes get made. See, when they feel the heat they see the light.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[interkin3tic]

Once some government erects a new law / regulation / tax / bureaucracy / program, it's harder to get rid of than mildew.

It's true, I have often found it takes a lot more Lysol to kill a legislator than it does to kill mildew.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[chefmonkey]

89%? Umm... you understand that percentages are multiplied together -- not added together -- when applied to each other, right?

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[BitZtream]

The overhead of tracking tax codes down to the city level (and keeping up to date) would be overwhelming. The only winning move in this case really is not to play and that's what Amazon did.

McDonalds and Walmart both seem to do it pretty well in coping with interstate, even global tax issues, not exactly sure why I company built on powerful computing technology should find it more difficult than a burger joint.

They can sell processing time on their massive under utilized computing clusters, but they can't calculate and accrue sales tax for customers they have an address for?

Wheres the punchline for your joke, I'm afraid I missed it somewhere?

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[David Greene]

What infrastructure is Washington based Amazon using in North Carolina?

First, the obvious ones: roads, sewers, electrical.

Then, the less obvious ones: schools (Amazon needs an educated customer base), various economic assistance programs (Amazon needs a strong economy to have customers), hospitals (Amazon needs live people). There are more.

It's silly to try to enumerate and categorize these things because they interrelate. Amazon makes use of the whole community infrastructure and they should bne contributing to it.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[David Greene]

Gas taxes and vehicle registration fees don't come close to paying for roads. Many areas use some form of sales tax to pay for part of their transportation infrastructure. So the shipping companies do not in fact pay for all of Amazon's use.

Amazon does make use of police services, schools, etc. because Amazon needs civilation to survive. That's the point. We can't separate one body's responsibility from another. We all depend on it all.

Untrue.

[maillemaker]

>States/cities/counties/etc. don't complete based on tax rates.

I know for a fact this is untrue.

When Hyundai set up shop in Montgomery, Alabama, there were huge tax incentives for them to do so.

When Bass Pro Shops set up shop in Prattvile, Alabama, they get a deal where they could split the sales tax revenue with the city.

States and cities DO make sweetheart tax incentive deals with big businesses in the hopes of luring them to set up shop in their jurisdiction, because of the revenue and jobs they bring to the area.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[nschubach]

Yeah, I understand that, but if we simply accommodated every government worker with every necessity for living (we pretty much do... life salary with health care) they will still see that person living in the capitalist world who just bought a brand new car that they might not be able to swing on their "fixed" budget because they are overextending themselves with their family, etc. People are always looking for more in life. Govt. workers are no exception.

If you were given $500,000 every year to spend how you wanted, you'd probably eventually live to the extent of that and be coming back for more. In the capitalist world, you can always find a way to get it. There's always more to get, even if it is just money. In a Star Trek world (and a socialist world) you have to accept that there's a limit. There's no ordering out for more ____. WYSIWYG: unless you can make it yourself by recycling what you have already... and most people suck at making things better by themselves. This is why I don't feel that Star Trek or Socialism can work. People will always want what their neighbor has, only better. Tell me that if you lived in a Star Trek world and had no care in live for food, shelter or water that you wouldn't want a cool spaceship to fly around in as well? In ST, you can't claim a planet as your own. You have to accept that it's not available. With capitalism, you can at least try to work hard/smart enough to buy it. If the governing body doesn't get in the way... even then, you just buy them out. You can't provide everything that everyone wants.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[m_c_rose]

As a previous poster said there are solutions for this already, such as Vertex Inc [vertexinc.com] and Taxware [adp.com] Companys all over the world have to deal with local tax authorities. How do you think companies like Walmart or McDonald's handle this, do you think they have their local managers tracking tax code? No they have an application that plugs directly into there ERP application which is connected with all their branches and mikely connected directly to their POS system to insure the proper taxes are being charged.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[Duradin]

I didn't know you could have McD's shipped to your house from an out of state store. When did they start this service?

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[nschubach]

Because I didn't quite cover everything you stated (my bad...)

Why didn't Bill Gates quit MS early and why didn't Buffet quit when he was ahead? There was a point where they could have lived the rest of their life without a bill to worry about. Why did they push that into to the billions? They could have lived the ideal life with no worry and invested properly, so could their kids.. and probably their kids. That mentality of acquiring more won't just vanish as Trek history would proclaim.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[WheelDweller]

Well, I'm sorry; there's just no right to privacy in the Constitution. And it can't be clearer about the rights of 1) *Life* 2) Liberty and 3) Pursuit of happiness. Later things like the search-n-seizure law limit what can be taken with/without a warrant, etc, but the Constitution has no mention of privacy. (Though, I really wish it did, with clear lines of demarcation)

And here were are, 40+ years still griping about it. CLEARLY this is a law that deserves more than a handful of people to decide for 300 million. The states should decide for themselves. That's one of the things that made America great.

Now, though, we're all under Federal attack.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[Anonymous Coward]

It IS a mess, even with the Streamlined Sales Tax Initiative. Usually, the tax zones are per-zip and street. So no problems there. WA state even provides a webservice to help now, though I wrote a system at my last job to use their database, which updates quarterly.

Where it GETS fun is Texas. They don't have a online webservice. Their tax regions in NO WAY line up with streets/zip codes. Even the so-called 'Streamline Sales Tax' folks didn't want them to join unless they aligned their tax zones with zip/streets. How do you get a authoritative sales tax in Texas? Their suggestion is to call the county tax assessors office for each order!

I think this is a real power of a big .com

[goffster]

By not having any particular roots, they can dictate the rules.

What

[Hognoxious]

What, both of them?

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[NineNine]

Any small business owner with more than a few employees already buys a subscription service to maintain employee tax tables via Intuit. It would be a relatively minor burden.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[bangzilla]

Walmart has a physical operation in NC and the ability to collect and process taxes. Out of state vendors (Amazon being just one or many, many) does not. Don't forget that this law, if it passes, will impact all out of state eCommerce vendors. Perhaps the large ones will say "we do enough business in NC and will set up a physical presence to process tax" but the many, many smaller entities will just drop this state. That will be painful for them and their customers within the State.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[superwiz]

Gas taxes and vehicle registration fees don't come close to paying for roads. Many areas use some form of sales tax to pay for part of their transportation infrastructure. So the shipping companies do not in fact pay for all of Amazon's use.

So very much not true. Amazon pays shippers. It is the shippers that need the roads to do their business. Amazon's responsibility ends with their payment to the shippers. If local governments need to tax gasoline more in order to support the roads on which that gasoline is used, no one would object. But to tax an entity that doesn't make direct use of those roads (becase, again, they already paid the shippers) is theft.

Amazon does make use of police services, schools, etc. because Amazon needs civilization to survive.

Aha. Right. They sell stuff. They are not a mission. They are a business providing a product. Their taxes should pay for the government services which they use in operation of their business. The far fetched "needs civilization to survive" argument can just as easily be used by China to tax Amazon because Amazon needs Chinese authors of the future to be educated to be able to write books that might be sold by Amazon in NC. Yes, this is far fetched. But it is the logical extreme of your far fetched argument.

We all depend on it all.

Blah, blah, blah. Talk is cheap. If Amazon isn't purchasing a service from NC, then NC has no business sending Amazon the bill. The "civilization" in NC is purchased by the NC residents. They get to pay for it -- not an out-of-state company. Anything else is theft.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[644bd346996]

In normal times, a tax like this would probably be motivated by greed as you say. However, basically every state in the union is struggling to make ends meet in this economy. The NC legislature would rather enact new taxes on currently untaxed potential revenue streams than make hard and unpopular decisions to do things like close schools or parks.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

Voting with your iron? Sounds like what my wife did when I told her to hurry up and get my shirt pressed. My head *still* hurts!

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[RareButSeriousSideEf]

Perhaps North Carolina is upset because local business are closing due to the tax disparity?

Chicago infamously addressed an automobile tax disparity by forcing suburban car dealerships to collect City taxes. City dwellers could no longer escape the inordinate tax by buying in the suburbs; Chicago argued that place of residence, not place of purchase, determined the sales tax. Except, that is, for suburban dwellers who might have bought a car in the city. For them, it was the other way around. Now they're trying the same thing with *all* car rentals in the entire 6-county suburban area. (They *might* be driven into the city at some point, don'tcha know.)

Mightn't NC address the tax disparity by competing with the surrounding tax environment, or by using residence-based sources like real-estate taxes to shore up their shortfalls? People often feel it's their right to seek relief from (what they feel are) unfair or inordinate taxes by not purchasing in that jurisdiction. Without such competitive pressure, there is insufficient drive for any kind of fiscal responsibility by governments (though if you know of a better way to incent governments to efficiency, please share; I personally trust neither corporate leaders nor government leaders to innately have my financial best interests at heart). At any rate, if jurisdictions can start taxing beyond their boundaries left and right, we might as well just turn governing over to Bernie Madoff or Enron or Halliburton. At least then we'll know there's going to be a-screwin' coming our way.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[Anonymous Coward]

I vehemently disagree with raising income tax. Raise every other tax but income tax.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[realnrh]

There would be no point to not selling to NC residents. North Carolina is claiming that the independent affiliates count as a 'physical presence' for Amazon, meaning Amazon has to pay sales tax on anything sold in the state. Amazon can eliminate that qualifier by eliminating its contracts with North Carolina businesses, freeing Amazon to continue to do business tax-free in the state. Refusing to do business entirely would only hurt Amazon more without particularly adding much more pressure.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think the people you use as an example are trying to procure more money. They already have more money than they can spend which is why they have billions in the bank. Why do NBA players play basketball after they retire? Because they loves it, these men are no different. They just play a game that doesn't have to stop until they die, since a bum knee won't stop them.

Trump is a great example of this, he's lost more money than probably everyone reading this has ever had, combined.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[superwiz]

Then, the less obvious ones: schools (Amazon needs an educated customer base), various economic assistance programs (Amazon needs a strong economy to have customers), hospitals (Amazon needs live people). There are more.

Umm... wow! No, Amazon does not need to have all of their customers' needs satisfied in order to maintain a customer base. Their customers need to have their own needs satisfied. And their customers should be the ones paying for it. That would put the tax burden on NC residents -- not on Amazon.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[Todd Knarr]

And are those states going to hold Vertex/Taxware/etc. liable if they give me incorrect information? I don't think so. If the states want to require use of those third parties then the information provided should at least be legally binding on the states (ie. if Vertex gives me the wrong rate, it's Not My Problem), which as far as I can tell the states won't go fo. Plus there's the whole philosophical issue of being required to pay a private party to comply with the law because the state making the law doesn't/won't make the information available.

This is the basic reason for the traditional state of sales-tax law: that I should always be able to know what I have to do to comply with the law. Where I've got a physical presence at a location, it's reasonable to assume I know what laws apply to that location. But let's apply your proposed rule to a physical store. Is it reasonable to require that a store with only one location be required to know what the tax rules are for every location a customer may live, and to collect and remit the taxes based on the customer's home? Remember that the store doesn't do any business over the phone or by mail, but they've no way of stopping tourists from coming in while they're visiting. If it's reasonable for Internet shops, it should be equally reasonable for physical shops since they've access to exactly the same resources an Internet or mail-order operation would. And I'm sure it'd help California's budget quite a bit if every time a Californian went out-of-state on vacation CA could get the sales tax (at California rates) on everything they bought. Unreasonable you say? Why not?

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[xmundt]

Greetings and Salutations...
A good point. My usual mantra for this is "money to a politician is like crack to an addict". There is never enough, they can never GET enough and they will sell their daughters into BDSM prostitution to get more of it.
pleasant dreams
dave mundt

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[realnrh]

That still wouldn't get Amazon to restore its NC affiliates, even if North Carolina made sales tax information perfectly free and instantly accessible at any moment. Amazon would still be forced to collect sales tax in North Carolina, due to having those affiliates constituting a 'physical presence' by the proposed NC law. By remaining an Internet retailer with no physical presence in the state, they do not have to charge the sales tax.

It's not about the technical difficulty. It's about the competitive disadvantage Amazon would accrue due to having an in-state physical presence. Other e-tailers would be able to undercut them simply by not having any physical presence in North Carolina.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[QuoteMstr]

Chicago infamously addressed an automobile tax disparity by forcing suburban car dealerships to collect City taxes. City dwellers could no longer escape the inordinate tax by buying in the suburbs

The real problem is that large cities in this country are no longer able to annex their suburbs. The consequent municipal fragmentation leads to a rash of problems ranging from fiscal inefficiency (because there are too many governments) to uncoordinated transit planning to terrible city schools. If cities were again allowed to naturally encompass entire metropolitan areas, we'd see fewer screwy laws and a greater focus on the common good.

Almost all the problems of large cities can be traced to the "I've got mine, so you can screw yourself" mentality of the nearby suburbs. It's not the sprawl itself that's the problem, but the perverse economic incentives that a fragmented regional government creates. Fix that problem, and we can have larger, healthier, and more sustainable cities.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[Anonymous Coward]

and don't forget the line marriages!

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[Anonymous Coward]

If only they would have the balls to stop selling to states that tried to enforce a tax on out-of-state purchases...

Wrong. That is exactly how you do it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Barrett said that he is frustrated at lawmakers for considering the tax, but equally aggravated with Amazon. “They're trying to tick off all their associates and get them to call down to Raleigh,” Barrett said. “I think that is pretty tacky. That's not the way to use people who are referring business to your business.”

Frustrated with lawmakers. Now he will be compelled to do something about it. Kudos to Amazon for replacing talk with action.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[Anonymous Coward]

what motives would cause governments...to deliver "good service" to the people at the lowest cost possible?

I don't know. Maybe an election? It could work...in theory

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[Anonymous Coward]

WHO IS JOHN GALT?

A WOPR of a problem...

[quickpick]

> SHALL WE PLAY A GAME?
>Love to, how about National Internet Taxation.
>WOULDN'T YOU PREFER A NICE GAME OF CHESS?
>Later, right now lets play National Internet Taxation.
>FINE. PLEASE CHOOSE YOUR SIDE.
>I'll be the government.
>I QUIT.
>What?! you can't quit, we haven't played yet.
>I ALREADY LEARNED THAT IN SOME GAMES THE ONLY WAY TO WIN IS NOT TO PLAY.
>Ah damn it you suck.
>WHO IS YOUR DADDY NOW?

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[nschubach]

So if you enjoy doing it so much, why not forfeit all your pay and just do it for free... or a dollar and give up all your stock benefits, etc. They still take the money.

NC is greedy state

[Foobar of Borg]

This comes as no surprise to those of us who have lived in North Carolina. The state legislature is a money-grubbing sleezebag pile of shit that tries to screw over its citizens at every turn. And, they provide next to nothing in services. Basically, the tax rates of New England with the services of Alabama. I'm glad I don't live there anymore!

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[RareButSeriousSideEf]

Granting all your arguments for the sake of argument, what would be the limiting factor against this annexing power? In my experience, the further the power center gets away from the individual, the less responsive it is to individual needs. It may be that this is a good thing in your view... that the individual should subordinate his or her individual needs to the needs of society at large. In the current state of affairs, the limiting factor is the inconvenience of moving; if a city's fiscal penalties to its residents (compared to surrounding jurisdictions) aren't sufficiently harmful to overcome the costs of uprooting & moving, then the residents will endure them. If they are, then the city will have to take notice and take corresponding steps to lure residents back. These same factors apply at a lesser scale to the act of making a purchase, e.g. gas, cigarettes, automobiles and such.

I tend to think that cities often create the conditions that lead to crappy schools, higher unemployment, and higher unit taxes despite a higher population density (and thus presumably better economy of scale). I guess I'm wondering why you think it is that a large city as a system unto itself couldn't blow the doors off a nearby suburb (also as a system unto itself). As a city grows, if it's governed as you envision, shouldn't people want to move into it rather than away from it?

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[Anonymous Coward]

The Framers made it so that trade between states wasn't taxed. And if you think about it, Amazon is really just a trading company, they just do their business over an invention that didn't exist in the Framers time. The theory though is the same. Walmart is a physical store and so gets taxed for that reason. If they wanted to they could move purely online but they haven't done so, but its their right if they wanted to.

Oh wait, was I mistaken and it's your goal to increase taxation and the power of government, not decrease it?

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[geekoid]

Of course it's worth it. Either Amazon affiliates will be turned back on, or some other company will fill the niche.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[Anonymous Coward]

what motives would cause governments...to deliver "good service" to the people at the lowest cost possible?

I don't know. Maybe an election? It could work...in theory

...but unfortunately not in practice. Or at least not for more than a few generations. After that, history shows that the inexorable tendency for the governing class to amass more power invariably overtakes the better senses of the governed.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[geekoid]

"At every turn, government at all levels seek more and more money rather than taking a hard look at where they are spending it"
This is complete bullshit.

They always are looking at how they are spending it, and trying to improve it.

I am really sick of you morons going on about government finance you know NOTHING about.

"but I have to wonder if such a project were applied properly, if it wouldn't be run more efficiently. "
I got news for you, almost all government agency are more efficiently the corporations.

Your perception is skewed because almost no errors are publicized with corporations and ONLY errors are reported from the government.

"save money or to use it wisely. "
not true.

"They have no profit motive and clearly no personal integrity or desire to serve motives"
Your just being an asshole there.

"So I have to wonder, what motives would cause governments at local, state and even federal levels to deliver "good service" to the people at the lowest cost possible?"

They do. The fact that it's more expensive to do something well then you know is irrelevant.
Pretty much every government service that gets privatized has failed. Why? no money to make.

I suggest you learn to read annual Budget and actual reports, and look into the actual cost of building something.
All the information is public.

It is not without problems, bu so does any large organization, and since you seem t be lumping all government service under one umbrella, that's a fucking huge organization. We are talking about 10'd of thousands of projects done every day, o ntime at on or under budget.

If anyone in government was as off with estimates as corporate projects are would loose their job.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[geekoid]

"...many, many smaller entities will just drop this state."
that business will be picked up by someone else.
Once someone begin publishing the code to add to a web site to do the taxes, they will be back.

And if Amazon keeps using there size have a stick the threaten legislation, they will eventual only be present in 2-3 states.

And if someone in AC can go to Amazon directly and make a purchase, they are a hypocrite and are suing there 'partners' as a stick to try and beat legislators with.

slashdotters don't like taxes

[sugarmotor]

I see a lot of cheap anger in the comments here about paying taxes.

I don't think there's much wrong with a government collecting taxes.

What is wrong in the US however, is the insane level of military spending, and recently those insane bail-out amounts. That's what should elicit anger.

Other than that I look at taxes as a pitch-in -- collect money from everyone, and build something that individuals couldn't by themselves. The complaints about paying taxes always strike me as petty.

I see a correlation between the low tax levels in the US (and the above mentioned insane waste of these low taxes), and the low quality of infrastructure in the US: bad roads, bad sidewalks, cheap / non-existent bus service, a completely ridiculous public school system.

I also think this is a cheap trick of Amazon. Businesses in general don't like to pay taxes, but reap all the benefits of the infrastructure that they pay for. They do like the free-ride.

Have a nice weekend !

Stephan

Re:slashdotters don't like taxes

[superwiz]

I am afraid you are too engrossed in the issues that matter to you to properly analyze the source of the anger in this discussion. Most of it is not over taxes themselves, but rather over extra-territorial taxation.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[DavidTC]

What cities should do, and won't do as long as conservatives whine about it, is tax the companies using cities.

Instead, they have huge infrastructure costs, but the people using them don't live in the city, so no property tax from them. Hell, they aren't even buying gas in the city. They're paying no taxes to support the roads they use every day.

And the companies with the industry are selling everywhere, so cities can't really recoup using sales tax. Not without excessive ones, which mostly hurts their poorest residents...everyone else just shops elsewhere, especially people who live elsewhere.

Hell, half of the businesses aren't in the city at all, so property taxes on them don't even help...they're just using city roads to move stuff. People are driving through the city from the suburb they live in to the suburb they work in, which them ships the goods out using their roads and airports, producing no damn tax revenue at all, but costing the city huge amounts on money.

It's total insanity. Cities need to say 'No. You cannot use our stuff without paying some sort of actual fucking tax so we can run the damn city and build and maintain the stuff you're using!'.

And then, especially here in Georgia, assholic rich suburbs of Atlanta get pissed about how 'the poor inner cities' in their county are using all 'their' taxes and incorporate themselves so they can keep their taxes for themselves. Hey, morons, you wouldn't even exist if not for the city and the poor people in it, who do things like pave the roads you drive on.

I'm from NC

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm from NC and what you don't know is that we already kind of pay a sales tax for things we buy on the internet.

It's called the estimated tax. First the tax form asks you if you kept records for all your internet purchases (who does that by the way?) When you say no then there is a table where you are supposed to estimate how much you spent based on your income! Thats right, a sales tax based on income! Then you take that estimated amount you spent and multiply it by the sales tax rate of your respective county.

But who the hell would be honest on one of these forms? Ok Mr. Politician I bought a lot of stuff online this year, of course you can never prove that but I'm just going to volunteer to pay you more than I absolutely have to.(!)

Much easier to get Amazon to collect it for you and since Amazon has no facilities in NC lets claim the Amazon Affiliates are the taxing "nexus" that gets the revenuer's foot in the door.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[superwiz]

As much as I hate the idea of extra-territorial taxation, I dislike logical discrepancies even more. So I feel obliged to point out that interstate commerce is constitutionally within the authority of the federal government. So the states can, technically, task the federal government (through a law suit if need be... although originally this kind of demand was precisely the reason why senators were originally appointed by governors) with creating a taxonomy of categories of products that they would adapt universally for the purposes of local taxation. After that, identifying a product as belonging to any specific category would be independent of locale.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[raftpeople]

The tax information is a non-issue. Companies have been dealing with this for a looong time. In addition, companies everywhere must bear the cost of regulations and so private solutions (like Vertex) exist. This is much better than having the govt. provide the solution because private companies can be more efficient and change easier/quicker with time. The real issue is whether e-tailers should pay sales tax. Are they getting the benefit of any of the services of that municipality where the goods are delivered? They benefit from the maintenance of the roads used to to deliver the goods, but the delivery companies certainly pay their fair share of taxes for that.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[superwiz]

I don't know. Maybe an election? It could work...in theory

Election happens once every 2-4 years. Purchase happens whenever you need something and you ELECT to purchase it. That sure takes care of the "vote often" part.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[Piazzola]

Uhh... except that "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" isn't in the Constitution either. Way to go.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[Grishnakh]

They weren't complaining this much when the economy was booming, were they? Even though the tax scheme and tax rates were the same as they are now. But now, the economy sucks and people are out of work, so the government's mad because they're not getting as much money.

Instead of raising taxes, they need to learn to do more with less, and cut back on non-essentials. That's what the rest of us have had to do.

If the government were smart, they would have saved up a lot of money during the boom time so they could ride out the recessions without changing anything. Since they weren't that smart, they need to pay the price for their incompetence.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[Grishnakh]

They ARE responsible for it. They're residents on NC, and voters.

Everyone is responsible for their government. Even if you personally didn't vote for the crappy people in charge, you're to a certain extent responsible for their actions.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[b4dc0d3r]

It rims itself... first time I've seen that. They truly do have everything.

KOHLER K-3369-4-NA Staccato Double-Basin Self-Rimming Kitchen Sink

What I wouldn't give for a self-rimming 7 of 9 Real Doll - if it existed I'd know where to look.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[Grishnakh]

Actually, companies like Amazon.com have been around since the late 1800s, so they're not as far away from the Framers' time as you think. Remember Sears, Robuck & Co.? Mail-order is the progenitor of internet shopping. The only thing the Internet does is gives you instant access to a company's catalog without having to wait for it in the mail, and gives you an easy way of ordering the things you want instead of sending payment through the mail. Basically, the internet has taken over from the USPS as the medium of communication; the nature of the company's operations aren't fundamentally different, however: they receive payment from someone far away for product X, so they send product X to that address by USPS (or these days, Fedex or UPS).

So we've had well over a century where mail-order companies have been doing business without paying sales tax when crossing state lines, since according to the Constitution, interstate commerce cannot be taxed or regulated by the States. All of a sudden, because the volume has grown a lot, the states now want a cut. Seems to me that if they had a valid claim to taxing mail-order sales, they should have acted on it at least a half-century earlier.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[Beer_Smurf]

"It's true, I have often found it takes a lot more Lysol to kill a legislator than it does to kill mildew."

I think this warrants extensive testing just to be sure.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[b4dc0d3r]

You make zero sense. Keep in mind that few of us readers own a business in Virginia.

Do you have to pay your takes in advance?
Do you not have the option of filing an amended return once you do know your gross?
Did your employees just fail to amend the return?
Have you complained to your legislators?
Are other companies in the same boat, and not complaining to their legislators?
Have you asked other companies if they would like to complain together?

I'm sure I have other questions, but these are a good start.

North Taxalina

[Wansu]

It seems our lawmakers are hell bent to outdo Taxachussetts.

So how does the current law apply to snail mail?

[DJRumpy]

How does the current law handle out of state sales that are ordered via snail mail? This should be no different to my way of thinking. Amazon has to 'live' somewhere and that state benefits from it (as it should). Just because a state can't attract a company to live in their state doesn't mean that all others outside of that state should be penalized for choosing some other state besides NC. Sucks to be small business owners there, but the is no different that "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone".

If they don't like the local law, you don't do business there.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[Anonymous Coward]

"you look at it from the perspective of the government official and see all those capitalist salaries and wonder why you are still in government when you can afford that yacht by working elsewhere."

In reality government workers are generally better off than workers in the private sector. They make nice salaries, are damned near impossible to fire, have defined-benefit retirement after a set number of years, and generally do less work than anyone in the private sector. How many of you private sector workers have it made like that?

I'll trade my 401K for a defined-benefit retirement any day.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[Grishnakh]

Yep, and this is why Star Trek, while fun to watch, really requires a giant suspension of disbelief when it comes to their economy and culture. Basically, Star Trek portrays a completely impossible utopia where money doesn't really seem to exist, no one is poor or hungry, and everyone just does what they love. Obviously, this is completely impossible for many reasons. First is resources. Resources are not infinite, even with a spacefaring civilization with FTL capability. Sure, you might have lots of dead planets and asteroids to mine for minerals or energy or whatever, but suppose I want a giant mansion to live in on Antares V next to a beautiful lake, with no neighbors in sight. Who's going to build it for me? How am I going to gain ownership of the land (and a lot of it, in order to keep other people away)? What if someone else wants that land too, because it's the most beautiful known lake on a class-M planet in the Alpha quadrant?

Any civilization is going to require people to do the shit jobs too, like building my mansion, running the ships needed to transport people and goods between planets, etc. Sure, a bunch of people probably would love to compete to be Captain of a starship so they can feed their giant ego, even if they don't get much pay besides having the best quarters on the ship. But what about the guy that cleans the captain's toilet? Who's going to take that job if there's no reward, and they could just sit at home playing the 23rd-century equivalent of Xbox? Even if someone invents automatically-cleaning toilets, and fully automatic factories to build them in (factory jobs aren't a lot of fun either), someone has to put on a red shirt and escort the Captain on landing parties and get killed by random accidents or alien attacks, with no realistic hope of getting the rank of Captain himself.

And of course, the behavior of people on Star Trek is completely unrealistic as well. They're basically all completely idealized version of humans, without all the negative problems: greed, sloth, sociopathy, psychopathy, etc., and the only negative problems being very minor. Their idea of recreation is to watch classical music concerts or play challenging mind games or enact various historical scenarios on the holodeck (instead of just acting out depraved sexual fantasies). They don't have all kinds of ridiculous drama in their lives, like affairs and divorces and petty fights. They don't have a Judge Judy or Jerry Springer show where they can fight over who fathered whose baby or who stole whose furniture or whatever, with everyone looking like a complete moron.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[fast turtle]

Right now, B&M fixed that for you small businesses need to do this for in-state tax (and those on state boundaries need to handle customers who cross state lines to shop). There's no reason why this can't be made efficient for multiple tax zones. In fact, it's probably an opportunity for someone to set up a service bureau to do this.

You better not be an upper level manager or accountant for any B&M as you're flat wrong about sales taxes. A B&M has to collect without exception those sales taxes of the municipality where it has a physical presence of a retail store. In regards to being on a state line, there is no issue there even if their physical property does cross a state line. The location of the store itself, not the damn parking lot, determines what state/municipality gets sales taxes collected. A solid example of this are the Outlet Stores on I15 that the exit for is in Nevada. The stores themselves are in California and the county which gets to collect sales tax is San Bernadino.

Now the issue with Amazon is that they've terminated the affiliate contracts and unless they had a clause in their contracts that gave them the option to terminate at any time, someone is going to pursue a "Breach of Contract" lawsuit against them and likely succeed. Currently, that is the only way that Amazon can get into any kind of trouble for this sudden termination. For those who didn't get the warning email, email is still not considered effective for legal notifications by the Court system in the United States. This means that once again, a breach of contract issue has possibly risen and Amazon screwed the damn pooch.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[PingPongBoy]

Ultimately, I believe, they simply want more money to vote themselves higher pay and to return favors of their campaign donors.

Hard to win - if the pay is bad, or there are no donors, then you get idiots or rich people with their own agendas who get voted in because no one else wants to even run.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[arminw]

... I think Amazon should or shouldn't pay tax ...

I always wonder how are a business in the state of Washington can be forced by the state of North Carolina to pay taxes to that state if they are not actually in the state.

We have an asshole for a Governor in this state.

[Anonymous Coward]

She follows a previous asshole, Mike Sleazly. She is destroying North Carolina.

Hawaii too

[tedwouldgo]

I just got an email that said Amazon was cutting off Hawaii affiliates for the same reason. It seems like they are going to destroy their entire affiliate base. Maybe it's just not worth it any more.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[arminw]

....They could have lived the ideal life with no worry and invested properly....

There is more to life than money and in the end people are not satisfied with the abundance of possessions. Jesus Christ tells us in Luke 12:15 "And He said to them, Watch and keep yourselves from covetousness. For a man's life is not in the abundance of the things which he possesses." and then Jesus continued:

"And He spoke a parable to them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully. 17 And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room in which to store my fruits? 18 And he said, I will do this. I will pull down my barns and build bigger ones, and I will store all my fruits and my goods there. 19 And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years. Take your ease, eat drink and be merry. 20 But God said to him, Fool! This night your soul shall be required of you, then whose shall be those things which you have prepared? 21 So is he who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.
22 And He said to His disciples, Therefore I say to you, Be not anxious as to your life, what you shall eat; nor for the body, what you shall put on. 23 Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing."

Neither Bill Gates and Warren Buffett can take anything out of this world. Like everybody else they came in naked and leave again in the same way. I do not know much about Warren Buffett, but at least Bill Gates is trying to do some good in this world with some of his money.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[arminw]

...Who's going to build it for me? ....

  Simple, in that world they have super intelligent robots.

(...Any civilization is going to require people to do the shit jobs too...)

See above.

(...But what about the guy that cleans the captain's toilet?...)

Same answer

In ages past people had slaves to do the jobs you mentioned and much more. Presumably in that civilization as depicted in Star Trek, technology is far enough advanced to have all work done by machines. That is also why a recurring science-fiction theme is that the machines rise up against their masters and try to rebel. That is the biggest problem I see with a Star Trek type civilization, to guard against a rebellion of the machines. Unlike human slaves, which have a mind and will of their own, machines can be designed to be well... machines who always without fail do what they're told.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[nschubach]

It doesn't matter if you believe that there's some "God" that strips you of your wealth, or take my belief that we are all going to just die and turn into worm food. It amounts to the same thing. I wasn't saying that. I was stating that no matter what you give to the government officials, they will always seek more. Even if they had enough to live the rest of their life without accepting another bribe, they'll still take that bribe.

There are more people in this world that will always seek out better stuff than there are monks living only by their needs. How many preachers drive Cadillacs that they don't really need... but they chose to buy that Caddy instead of sticking with the Malibu which has the same amount of doors, seats, and possibly trunk space.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[Man On Pink Corner]

Usually, it comes down to the question of who has more guns.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[bill_mcgonigle]

Unfortunately, Amazon probably needed to demonstrate how serious they were

I didn't see from TFA what stage this was at, but it sounded like it was simmering in the legislature.

If it had passed the house and was to come to a vote for the Senate, that might have been a good time. If it was on the governor's desk, that might have been a good time.

But if it's really just being worked on now, this is way too much too soon. They should have minimized the amount of time their affiliates would be out of business. Unless this is coming for a vote, most legislators aren't paying attention, and this may be written off as a lost cause when it comes time to vote.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[Man On Pink Corner]

For the same reason you wouldn't play a video game with no score, prestige, or other means of keeping track of your progress.

Good for Amazon

[PortHaven]

It's kind of neat to see large companies that are actually able to tell a state to !@#$% off in a good way.

Right now we have a government that is running our nation's economy into the ground. And their solution is to raise taxes and essentially kill those business that are actually doing well. Those that are managing but not doing great will die under such programs. This will further tank the economy, than those were doing well will start to struggle. Revenues to the government tax coffers will go down. So they will in turn raise more taxes and further kill the economy.

Come on, everyone in Congress should have to play SimCity.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[arminw]

.... How many preachers drive Cadillacs ....

What difference does that make? Does that negate to the words of Jesus? Do you really think that government officials are in any different from the rest of us? Jesus here he was not talking about a government official, but to a successful farmer. At least the farmer was successful in his own eyes and by the world's standard, but apparently not in God's eyes. God calls such a person a fool. In my estimation, there is nothing more serious than to be called a fool by God. It is LOVE for money that is the root of all evil, not money per se.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[arminw]

...Don't forget that this law...

  Law, shma, so what? How does a North Carolina law affect a business located in Washington state? Can North Carolina go to court in Washington and thereby force Amazon to pay tax to North Carolina? Can they do this in federal court in North Carolina?

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[demonlapin]

He can't write clearly in English. Why do you expect anything meaningful out of him?

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[demonlapin]

Warning to mods: the guy is joking. Mod appropriately.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[nschubach]

That's assuming there is a God. My argument is that everyone, even Jesus if he did exist was seeking out attention by performing magic tricks to convince people he was the son of God. It's not exactly money, but it's fame, which in today's market money is a tool to achieve.

By reading what you posted, it's the acquisition of more than you need to sustain. By the argument that money is the root of all evil, you must be in a bad situation, working for money to pay for Internet access instead of farming your own food and living off the land. By your explanation, we are all fools... unless you are a monk. Maybe you live by the credo that since you preach what you think is "His" word that you are entitled to more luxury than a laborer in China?

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[evanbd]

They're getting less money. That means they either need to spend less money, take in more money, engage in deficit spending, or some combination of those. As someone whose taxes they will be spending, I think they should both raise taxes and spend less, but not make up the budget shortfall on either one alone.

Of course the budget looks different as a result of changing economic conditions. So what? I know they need to change either income or expenses, and they appear to as well. My complaint is with how they plan to go about collecting more money, not the fact that they plan to do so.

I also note that if they want to spend less, that means that some people currently employed by the government won't be any more. In the middle of an economic downturn is a particularly harsh time to cut jobs. I think it's reasonable for the government to decide that it isn't fair to make up the entire budget shortfall by cutting jobs, and that some of it should be made up by taxpayers tightening their belts. Cutting lots of jobs isn't going to help the economy recover, but neither is having the budget collapse. A mixed approach seems appropriate.

My only complaint is that, if they need to raise taxes, they should look at the reasonably effective set of taxes in place, and just increase them slightly. Finding new taxes that people won't notice is more complicated, and takes up time they could better spend on other things. Trying to hide those taxes is disingenuous; I don't mind paying higher taxes if needed, I do mind them trying to make me not notice.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[nschubach]

That's my point. ;) People seek to obtain more of something than their neighbor. Fame, score, money, cheese... whatever.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[DDLKermit007]

Letting it get anywhere near a decision process would have given it legitimacy and traction. Having the state say "oops, you caught us, we won't try it ever again" goes allot further to stamp the crap out of this garbage.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[ae1294]

You make zero sense. Keep in mind that few of us readers own a business in Virginia.

When we applied for a business license in Norfolk, VA in 2001 they asked us how much money we where going to gross in the coming year on our new business venture. We told them $X but we really had no idea. We grossed something like $5X although we didn't NET jack shit.

Five years later we where audited by the state. They wanted us to drag out all of our paper receipts for the last five years and all this other "we're going to ass ream you" shit.

We told them they would need to talk to our CPA. The CPA faxed them a few reports and magically we no longer had to waste months of our time to gather up all of the paper information they where asking for.

Apparently if you start a business and you gross more than you tell them up front you are going to be fined. I don't think there was anyway to go back and amend the information but if there was I expected the CPA would have known about it.

I hope this makes more sense, if not then I don't fucking know what to tell you because I didn't understand why I was being charged Two Grand for GROSSING more money yet not NETING more money. The difference in the tax fee was something like $100 and the rest was a very large fine.

From what I was told by the CPA a lot of small businesses who try and do the right things when it comes to paying taxes are subjected to fishing exercises by the state once they have been in business at least five years. It's much easier to take money from someone who has been trying to pay all the proper taxes and thus filing all those forms than never filing a damn thing to start with.

This relates to sales tax very vaguely but I figured I'd post since it seemed like phun at the time after a few beers and all..

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[ae1294]

He can't write clearly in English. Why do you expect anything meaningful out of him?

Someone's got mod envy.... But it's OK... I still love you...

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[drinkypoo]

Perhaps North Carolina is upset because local business are closing due to the tax disparity?

Buggy-whip manufacturers were no doubt quite upset with the proliferation of the horseless carriage. I suppose they should have lobbied for laws to make them illegal.

Amazon sneaks in as an interstate institution, and they know that if residents have to pay tax in addition to shipping, their customers will be more likely to patronize local business.

When you buy physical goods via the internet, you are already paying taxes; the goods must be delivered.

If local business cannot compete on its own merit, it should be permitted to fail.

I doubt this has anything to do with "campaign donors and higher pay", which sounds like knee-jerk AM radio conservatism.

Following the money is always a good idea; neither one of us has done this.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[drinkypoo]

Any civilization is going to require people to do the shit jobs too, like building my mansion, running the ships needed to transport people and goods between planets, etc.

There are few starships and many people; this issue of supply and demand is handled via the existence of a Star Trek academy. So the ships needed to transport people and goods can (in this fictional universe, and I suspect in the real one) can be more than handled by the steady stream of applicants. The issue of needing people to build stuff is nonsense also. Once you have some particularly good machines, all you need do is design new machines.

Further, humanity has obviously been led to not need to drive around in 4x4s tearing up the environment. So I think that it's a possible future, but I think we'll go through a huge amount of fascism before getting there. The advantage of a single world-government, though, is that positive changes can theoretically affect everyone; meanwhile, the current situation isn't working out all that well for the majority of humans.

And of course, the behavior of people on Star Trek is completely unrealistic as well. They're basically all completely idealized version of humans, without all the negative problems: greed, sloth, sociopathy, psychopathy, etc., and the only negative problems being very minor. Their idea of recreation is to watch classical music concerts or play challenging mind games or enact various historical scenarios on the holodeck (instead of just acting out depraved sexual fantasies).

You said it: depraved. In a world in which basic needs are met for all people (food, clothes, and shelter) then people will help heal each other. It's when the system is deliberately kept out of balance to produce opportunities for the already-wealthy that you have the problems we have today, at least on such a scale. For instance, the black community is still dealing with the economic [and other] aftereffects of slavery, and will be for basically the foreseeable future.

They don't have all kinds of ridiculous drama in their lives, like affairs and divorces and petty fights. They don't have a Judge Judy or Jerry Springer show where they can fight over who fathered whose baby or who stole whose furniture or whatever, with everyone looking like a complete moron.

They also don't go to the bathroom. I'm pretty sure that's why they call it science fiction. Real people poop.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[Anonymous Coward]

I looked carefully at the US constitution and I saw words like justice and liberty. To me these are far more more important government goals than "efficiency".
People have been complaining about taxes for thousands of years. Lets move on to something new.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[Artifakt]

what is the difference between a "snack item" and a "food item"

Flour. Usually, if it's basically a candy bar, it's a snack item. Add enough flour to the same formula and it becomes a food item. (This is actually how my state determines the difference). Yes, you have to bake the mix differently, after letting it rise, to get a cake and not a candy bar, but the prep is not what's important for sales tax, its the presence or absence of a certain percentage of flour.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[arminw]

... assuming there is a God...

There are many basic assumptions in life and yes, my assumption, my belief is that there is a God and that every person is ultimately responsible to him.

(...that you are entitled...)

Because I BEIEVE that there is a God, I also believe he apportions our very lives out to us according to his will by grace. Nobody on this entire planet is entitled to anything, including life itself. It is all a gift of grace. I also believe that this life does not end at the grave, but that we are here on this planet for an education. Over and over, Christians are admonished to learn and practice the discipline of love. I believe that I am an eternal spirit being made in the image of God, destined to be with God forever, but am now, for a short time, living in this mortal body.

You may believe whatever you want to believe and live accordingly, but in the end each person will reap what they have sown. Because we have all broken God's law multiple times, we deserve death, but God offers us grace instead, if we believe. You may accept that gift by faith or you may reject it by unbelief.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[TheoMurpse]

You would also need to know exactly where each IP terminates. Is A.B.C.D within city limits? Etc.

Let's not kid ourselves: Tax rates aren't determined by where the stuff is shipped to; it is determined by where the payment transaction occurs. If I pay for something in NYC and have it shipped to Seattle, I pay NYC tax, not Seattle tax.

Hence, looking at the IP (and not the shipping address or billing address for the credit card) is necessary.

But, you see, we don't actually have databases for where each IP goes.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon can eliminate that qualifier by eliminating its contracts with North Carolina businesses, freeing Amazon to continue to do business tax-free in the state.

No. It frees Amazon to continue doing business without collecting sales tax itself. Sales it makes to residents are still taxed as they have always been, but this places the responsibility for remitting the tax on the resident custom rather than on Amazon.

Stop perpetuating the myth of tax-free internet sales.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[Grishnakh]

Except that in every Star Trek series (including the latest movie), we have NEVER seen anything even resembling a robot. Instead, we HAVE seen people doing real shit jobs, such as dilithium mining. This was the subject of one of the TOS episodes, where Mudd brought some women to be their wives because they lived on a remote planet and had no companionship.

Your robots doing all the shit-work idea would have some merit, except that if we're talking about Star Trek in particular, I don't think it applies.

Besides, you left out my comment about the red-shirts. Who would willingly sign up for that job if they weren't required to work? There's always going to be jobs that are "shit work", even if you have technology (incl. robots) doing what in previous times would have needed human workers (cleaning toilets, etc.). Not everyone can be Captain or Admiral. You think they're just going to have starships flying around with only a human Captain and no other crew, with everything done by robots? Remember, these days, a lot of software maintenance jobs are considered "shit work", even though that's really a dream job compared to cleaning toilets. And cleaning toilets is probably a dream job compared to some other jobs that people simply don't do any more because technology has obsoleted them (like many construction jobs where workers frequently died, and are now done by heavy equipment instead of humans with hand tools). You're never going to get rid of "shit jobs"; it's just that their definition changes over time.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[Grishnakh]

There are few starships and many people; this issue of supply and demand is handled via the existence of a Star Trek academy. So the ships needed to transport people and goods can (in this fictional universe, and I suspect in the real one) can be more than handled by the steady stream of applicants. The issue of needing people to build stuff is nonsense also. Once you have some particularly good machines, all you need do is design new machines.

Right, and someone needs to design the machines. That's not exactly glamorous work. I'm an engineer myself, and if I didn't have to work, I'd quit my job in a second. I'd be much happier sitting at home working on my own, completely unprofitable projects, rather that doing hard work designing things which are profitable and useful to a larger segment of the population, mainly because doing that work requires working with other people and taking orders. This is why open-source software is so successful, at least in the areas where they have no problems finding volunteers: OSS volunteers work on projects they find interesting, and don't have to deal with a bunch of management BS. And conversely, they DON'T work on projects they find boring, why is why there are no OSS projects competing against really boring applications like the crap that PeopleSoft makes.

Further, humanity has obviously been led to not need to drive around in 4x4s tearing up the environment.

You think somehow, in the future, all people will somehow to trained to care for the environment, or indeed, even have a conscience? You're insane. Current studies already show sociopaths to be at least 5% of the population, and they're (get this) naturally occurring. That means that if two perfectly normal, caring parents have a child, they have a 1-in-20 chance of that child being a conscienceless asshole, no matter how they raise it.

I'm not saying people with 4x4s have no conscience, however, (in fact I can understand why someone who like the outdoors would want to drive around in it instead of being confined to hiking, I just think that 4x4s cause too much damage), just that the much worse case of people who truly have no conscience are something we can't avoid without resorting to genetic engineering.

You said it: depraved. In a world in which basic needs are met for all people (food, clothes, and shelter) then people will help heal each other.

You've got to be kidding. This sounds like a bunch of limp-wristed liberal nonsense. If my basic needs are met, and I can't get ahead by working for money to buy myself a nicer situation (like a house away from neighbors), then why on earth would I want to help "heal each other"? I don't want to be around other people, except close friends and family, any more than I have to.

This is exactly what happened in the Soviet Union, and why their economy was a disaster. If there's no reward for work, then people simply won't do it. And things like greed and sloth are intrinsic parts of being human. You can't get rid of them in people without making them no longer people.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[BitZtream]

Yes, but how far did you underestimate your GROSS and why did you not think to adjust your payment schedule during the year.

Businesses are SUPPOSED to do their taxes every quarter, you mean you didn't realize you under-estimated at any point before the final payment?

I run a business myself, in NC and the solution is really simple. ACCOUNTANT. If you do enough business that your taxes are hard then you really can afford to hire an accountant. They really aren't that expensive you when you realize how much they offload.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[BitZtream]

If you make that little amount of money than you are a twit for reporting it as a small business.

There comes a point where its not worth it to call it a 'business' you just call it 'income'.

Unless you're trying to use it to take advantage of some tax loophole. And well, if you're trying to use a 'business' to take advantage of a tax loophole for some reason than you can stop your bitching and deal with the fact that using that loophole requires you to have a clue about filing your taxes or hire someone who does.

I don't bake my own bread because the WORST crap I can buy is STILL better than what I bake, maybe you need to talk to someone with a clue about running a business instead of bitching about problems you run into because you don't know how.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[BitZtream]

Wrong. You aren't taxing them 3 times, you are taxing them once on the affiliate transaction.

Amazon doesn't tax the people.

You don't make the sale, you refer them to Amazon who makes the sale.

The tax is on the revenue presented back to the affiliate.

The store in NC isn't being taxed on the $90 that amazon made, its being taxed on the $0.25 that amazon gave them for refering the sale.

I've worked for businesses that didn't pay taxes for years due to their poor performance. Yes you still have to pay payroll taxes and other employement related things, but thats completely seperate from sales tax isn't it.

Besides, jackass, its not like you pay the sales tax, you fucking charge it directly to the customers anyway. You aren't losing money, you're passing it through. It was never part of your profit anyway, stop acting like they were taking something from you douchebag, it wasn't yours to begin with.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[BitZtream]

How are they helping the community exactly? By helping to ensure that sales normally made in the community that would have been taxed and provided benifits to the community can now be made outside the community with absolutely none of it going to anyone in the state with the tiny exception of the shipper?

Lets pretend every purchase is made online, and businesses set themselves up to only sale to people in other states, hence never have to collect sales tax. Lets just pretend, for the moment, that we end up making EVERY purchase this way. So who is going to pay for all the things that those state sales taxes once funded now?

Do you think the money will come from thin air?

So no money, no services ... thanks, I appreciate the help they provided my community. I'm glad we no longer build any improvements or provide services like public health to our residents, you are totally right, the state is much better now ...

Fortunately, we don't live in that dream world.

Also, the tax is on the money amazon gives to NC affiliates for refering the sale, NOT on the total of the sale. Residents of NC are responsible for paying sales tax on the total sales price themselves.

Everyone on slashdot is all up in arms about how its double taxation and unfair, and yet none of you have the slightest fucking clue how the bill is even currently considered being written.

Whats more, it isn't even finailize and ready to vote on yet, you don't ACTUALLY know how its going to end up.

So you're not only wrong in reality, you aren't even right about it in theory.

Go news for nerds! Stuff that matters, but not enough to know have the actual facts about it!

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[ae1294]

Yes, but how far did you underestimate your GROSS and why did you not think to adjust your payment schedule during the year.

There was no payment schedule. It was a yearly fee required to be paid up front for having a business license in south-eastern VA. They asked how much we where going to gross at the start of each year, We made guesses, The first one was off, the following year's we improved our guesses based on our business history.

Businesses are SUPPOSED to do their taxes every quarter, you mean you didn't realize you under-estimated at any point before the final payment?

Once again, we are talking about a fee paid upfront based on nothing but speculation. There was no paying this fee in installments, it's an up front fee.

I run a business myself, in NC and the solution is really simple. ACCOUNTANT. If you do enough business that your taxes are hard then you really can afford to hire an accountant. They really aren't that expensive you when you realize how much they offload.

You didn't read what I wrote at all did you? We had a CPA, they are better than accountants because they are (C)ertified (P)ublic (A)ccountants.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[BitZtream]

If you'd like, I can open my copy of QuickBooks and tell you, but I'm guessing you just didn't realize that this trivial problem was solved years ago and is as simple as buying just about any accounting software package known to man and keeping the tax tables up to date yearly.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[BitZtream]

I'd like to add to the previous post that in this particular case, with the state of north carolina, you can look up addresses online, via one of the state websites and find out what city/county any address (state recognized) is in for most of the state. Not all counties are on the state wide system yet, almost all have their one websites with the information, only a few are not currently available to the general public online.

So again, really, this is a fucking trivial issue when you're talking about using computers to address it.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[demonlapin]

Nonono, I never downmod just for misusing "where" for "were". I'm not so much a grammar Nazi as a grammar Puritan - yeah, I do set a few people on fire every now and again, but it's personal, retail-level work, not the wholesale massacre stuff.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[bill_mcgonigle]

Yeah, that's the other side of the coin.

"I'm taking an awful risk Vader. This had better work."

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[ae1294]

Nonono, I never downmod just for misusing "where" for "were". I'm not so much a grammar Nazi as a grammar Puritan - yeah, I do set a few people on fire every now and again, but it's personal, retail-level work, not the wholesale massacre stuff.

Ooooo... You know I am aware of the difference. It's just I normally get caught up making sure my contractions are correct that my hands do their own thing, but thanks for explaining because I didn't notice it. I will file it under Fsck for the future post.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[interkin3tic]

I always love it when someone rephrases my jokes to be more obvious and gets all the mod points for it.

That was sarcasm. I'm sarcastically responding to the poor moderation job here, the joke is that I'm saying I love it but really I hate it because mod points are all I have in this world and I'm bitter about it.

And then right there the joke was that I was making a joke and then restating it to be more obvious, because that was what I was complaining about.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[Mr2001]

If the government were smart, they would have saved up a lot of money during the boom time so they could ride out the recessions without changing anything. Since they weren't that smart, they need to pay the price for their incompetence.

Unfortunately, it's not some faceless "they" in the capitol that suffers, it's everyone.

The economy is basically investment + private spending + government spending. When two of those dry up, things get bad. When all three dry up, things get even worse. If money isn't changing hands, there's no economy.

And when you look more closely at what the government is spending money on, the situation is worse still. In a recession, the need for things like food stamps and Medicaid rises at the same time as the tax revenue to pay for them falls.

State governments don't have the liberty that the federal government does to keep on spending even as tax revenue falls. Raising taxes to keep paying for state services sucks, but it's better than deepening the recession and its impact on citizens by letting those services disappear.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[bkpark]

Some other company in North Carolina, assuming they can survive under the tax, and assuming that they can compete with Amazon with retailer.

That's two very sketch assumptions there (and I wasn't being thorough)—if I had to guess, I'd say no one else will be able to fill that niche, at least not in a way that benefits residents of North Carolina, compared to the days when Amazon had business "in the state" sans tax.

Re:I think this is a real power of a big .com

[bkpark]

By not having any particular roots, they can dictate the rules.

They are not dictating the rules. They were operating the rules in place when they started—states have no power to tax interstate commerce, and we have no federal sales tax (and I'm not sure if the federal government actually has power to levy sales tax; all I know for sure is that they had the power to impose tariffs and duties on imports since the beginning and they can tax income, after the 16th amendment).

They do have the flexibility to change the range of their operation, but by no means they are dictating the rules, no more than the Jews fleeing Nazi Germany (and the whole Europe) were "dictating the rules" of their living condition.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[bkpark]

It is not the online retailers that are leaching, it is the people who buy from them and don't pay the tax themselves. Do you have any idea what a nightmare it would be for a small online retailer if they had to figure out what sales tax to charge on every transaction in every locality in the country.

The buyers are not leeches either. Do you have any idea what a horrible inconvenience it would be to keep a record of everything I buy online (and keep record of whether I paid tax on it already or not) so that I can pay a lump sum at the end of the year? As a resident of a state with one of those useless "use tax" (California), I can say that no one without an accounting department pays for those things or bothers listing it in the tax return.

The real leech is the state governments. Instead of curbing their excesses, they are trying to live off of those who do not rely on their so-called "services". As someone else mentioned, the only thing online retailers cost the state is infrastructure for roads and internet—and I am sure all the shipping companies and ISPs based in the state pay their fair share of the tax necessary for maintaining those infrastructures, if any, and the fair share for the out-of-state sellers and in-state buyers is zero.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[bkpark]

I've had to deal with sales tax in both Virginia and North Carolina. The truth of the mater is they don't want you to know what the current tax rate is because they make more money when they audit your small business and apply fines a couple years later.

I guess as it was once said,

"You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against -- then you'll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. Your fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted -- and you create a nation of law-breakers -- and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system...that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be easier to deal with."

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[soren202]

I agree, but it's still a bit of a dick move on their part.

It probably would have been a better idea to give the people they were ditching a firm notice ahead of time, rather than ditch them after only a "probably at some point" type warning.

Re:Are Online Retailers Going to Contribute or Not

[ae1294]

That sounds about right... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged
Welcome to the United States, home of the largest prison population in the world!

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[ink]

Buggy-whip manufacturers were no doubt quite upset with the proliferation of the horseless carriage. I suppose they should have lobbied for laws to make them illegal.

This is hardly a case of luddism. We're talking about a community that is using a tried-and-true sales tax in order to fund the common coffers. The sales tax can be the key component of the so-called "flat tax", which is lauded by conservatives everywhere as the solution to all our budget problems. I have moral issues with sales taxes at all because they seem to be regressive in nature (particularly when on food and shelter) -- but to allow Amazon to pay no taxes while Joe Shopowner has to pony up... well, it smacks of a government-created market disparity. Add to that the inefficiencies of shipping products a-la-carte instead of in bulk, you begin to uncover something rotten and inefficient.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[drinkypoo]

to allow Amazon to pay no taxes while Joe Shopowner has to pony up [...] smacks of a government-created market disparity. Add to that the inefficiencies of shipping products a-la-carte instead of in bulk, you begin to uncover something rotten and inefficient.

I couldn't have said it better myself. They created this problem by relying solely on sales taxes, and now they are trying to create inefficient hacks to collect revenues to which they are not entitled.

Amazon could perhaps be charged some kind of tax, but it's not reasonable for it to be the same as full sales taxes, because they are simply not engaging in the same behaviors as local retailers; purchasers are not entitled to protection in the local courts for example, and Amazon does not have to be provided with fire protection or similar services.

Re:That's the real meaning of "voting with your fe

[bangzilla]

The possessive form of the word is spelled "their" ;-)