Rhode Island Affiliates Banned From Amazon.com Sales

Rand Huck writes "Amazon.com has now added Rhode Island to its blacklist of affiliates in response to its proposed budget changes to enforce a tax on Internet sales, which includes commissions on their affiliate program by content providers based in Rhode Island. The first state to be blacklisted was North Carolina, for the same reason. If you go to a Rhode Island-based or North Carolina-based website that advertises Amazon.com goods as an affiliate, that website will no longer have the goods available because otherwise Amazon.com would be forced to pay sales tax to the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations or the State of North Carolina. The state's rationale is, if someone clicks to buy a good from Amazon.com via a site based in Rhode Island, it's equivalent to buying a good from a brick and mortar chain store located in Rhode Island."

Comments

Re:Inconsistent behavior

[Cidolfas]

I thought they were being consistent. The NY law, which doesn't get your affiliates kicked out, taxes purchases made by residents of NY. The new laws that are getting affiliates banned tax purchases made from affiliates registered in those states.

So if you lived in NY and you wanted to buy something from an online affiliate located in RI, you would have to pay tax in both NY and RI.

And that's the problem with it. The Commerce Clause was put in the constitution to prevent things like this double-taxing for interstate commerce. If it's not as popular in some states to tax purchases made by residents, then they're going to try to get tax money from outside the state. It shouldn't hold up to constitutional standards on the issue, but that doesn't mean it will be overturned if challenged.

Re:Hopefully it will cut down on affiliate-link sp

[russotto]

If you buy something out of state, you're supposed to pay the sales tax to your local state and then apply for a reimbursement from the state you paid the original tax in.

Wrong, as with most of the rest of your post. There is no such "reimbursement". If a resident of Maryland physically goes to Pennsylvania and buys something, the sales tax on the transaction is owed to Pennsylvania. There is no reimbursement, even if Maryland also demands a "use tax" on the item.

The Supreme Court decided some time ago (in a mail order case, not an Internet case) that companies could not be required to collect sales taxes for states in which they did not have a "nexus". It's not a matter of a "tax holiday" or of Congress sitting on their behind; Congress has no obligation to act for the states in this matter. It's not a matter of enforcing state law. It's a matter of states trying to widen the definition of that "nexus" beyond what the courts have accepted in the past. It probably won't work, but Amazon isn't willing to get into a court battle over it. Newegg, on the other hand, after initially collecting New York tax, ceased doing so after consulting their lawyers. NY has apparently not taken them up on the challenge.

Re:I fear that pretty soon...

[Gallamine]

>generally trust Amazon more than I do the small fry sites they 'affiliate' with.

I think you're a bit misguided here. The "small fry sites" you're referring to are sites, like mine, that link to Amazon products in exchange for a cut from Amazon. It's huge marketing for Amazon, and a tidy revenue for me and others. But not now. I'm in NC and I got screwed. Amazon hasn't killed people *selling* products, they've just cut off people that are doing free advertising for them.