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Amazon Re-Opens Affiliate Program In California
An anonymous reader writes "Due to Governor Jerry Brown temporarily repealing the tax law opposed by Amazon, the Amazon Associates Program has been brought back to California."
Amazon will still have to collect sales tax in California in 2013 unless Congress intevenes before then.
Gas taxes?
Innocent californian amazon associates, apparently
Well then that's kind of silly, since they correlate better to their wear and tear than any other tax would.
Taxes are for the little people.
not the job-exporting Billionaires.
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Amazon will still have to collect sales tax in California in 2013 unless Congress intevenes before then.
Or.. Amazon will happily make their sales tax-free profits until 2013, and then pull out of California again.
Like Amazon would continue to ignore the 8th largest economy in the world.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
You? Why aren't you sending into the state the sales tax you owe without needing Amazon to collect it for you?
Fucking sleazy, blackmailing, tax dodger.
If you don't think you're paying enough tax, you could always send a check to the government. I'm sure they'll be happy to cash it.
Yeah, that worked so well in Greece and Ireland.
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Perhaps the Californians just don't know they're supposed to pay use tax?
But Amazon isn't the one who owes the sales tax, it's the consumers. If this guy feels the state is being cheated from tax money he should write them a check for what he owes them. He shouldn't need Amazon to do it for him.
Because all they were doing is stopping affiliates in California. Now while Amazon doesn't want to do that, they like affiliates because they make money on them, it really isn't a big issue. They still sold to California, and there is nothing CA could do to stop them. Amazon itself and their affiliates in all the other states would still sell to buyers in CA.
Gasoline taxes pay for less and less of California's freeways and roads. This report (http://goo.gl/AgBO0) shows that less than 51% of freeways are paid for by what can be considered as user fees (registrations, gas taxes, etc.). The rest is paid for by bonds and other, unrelated taxes.
From the paper:
"The reasons for the decline in the share of highway costs covered by gas taxes and other âoeuser feesâ are not mysterious. The federal gasoline tax and most state gasoline taxes are not indexed for inflation, and the federal gasoline tax has not been increased since 1993. In 1999, federal gasoline and diesel taxes collected $29.8 billion for highways, and in 2008, the same taxes collected $30.6 billion for highways. Adjusted for inflation, the yearly taxes collected between 1999 and 2008 shrank 32 percent, even though we continued to build more new roads and bridges."
Did you pay your use tax for that kindle? If not, you're the fucking sleazy tax dodger.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Which makes sense, if you think that everything should be funded by those who use it. If, on the other hand, you think that everything should be funded by those who benefit from it, it makes more sense to weigh the tax against the businesses who are able to pull in millions of dollars each year due to the public infrastructure provided for by tax dollars.
I'm not concerned about me; I want to ensure that the millions of other Californians are paying their fare share, so that they're properly funding the government. Since it would be prohibitively expensive to audit each and every person who purchase anything off of the internet, it makes more sense to focus the responsibility in one place, much as we put the onus on brick-and-mortar stores to collect sales tax, instead of depending on each consumer to tally their own sales tax and submit it at the end of the year.
It must be fun to have a large corporation use your small business as a bargaining tool.
Amazon wrote: "...accounts were closed due to the prior legislation"
More specifically, Amazon closed your accounts because they did not like the prior legislation.
It's not just Amazon, a lot of online retailers don't charge taxes. Here's what everybody in Washington seems to be missing though: A LOT of people buy A LOT of stuff online for the past decade or two. All this stuff used to be in brick and mortar stores getting taxed regularly, now that revenue has completely moved to the private sector, which doesn't do much for the country besides the CEOs like to help the private jet industry from time to time.
I think as a country we are collecting less tax from internal sales overall, and suddenly the debt skyrockets... but you know, how much do we really care? We can be self-sufficient if things went to shit, your cloth might be more expensive, but it beats the alternative...
it makes more sense to focus the responsibility in one place, much as we put the onus on brick-and-mortar stores to collect sales tax, instead of depending on each consumer to tally their own sales tax and submit it at the end of the year.
While I agree with you on that point, it is not California's place to impose such requirements on Amazon.
Why would they need to open anything up. The value of whats being delivered doesn't effect the wear on the roads. They would just have to weigh it.
But Amazon isn't the one who owes the sales tax, it's the consumers.
That's what the bootleggers said too.
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Unfortunately, the report you cite is inaccurate. It neglects the ad-valorum taxes on motor fuels being allocated as user fees. This was decided by referendum as recently as prop 42. The scumbags in our Democratic controlled legislature refuse to allocate those (sales) taxes to highway construction and maintenance.
In fact, if sales taxes collected on motor fuel purchases were properly allocated the result would be a $25+ billion subsidy to the general fund (nationally) .
why not make this internet tax holiday that actually benefits regular people permanent?
the real problem is that these taxes are paid for by regular people and not buy huge corporations so California sees it as an easy way to make revenue by screwing regular people.
If that's what they said then they are right. Sales tax is a consumption tax owed by the consumer.
Except that the law is that he owes a use tax. Its his own fault for not paying it if Amazon isn't collecting the tax.
Makes me want to buy two Kindles (which I've just done...)
Cheers to Amazon for stepping up the fight against ever more onerous taxation, including internet taxation.
Again, when engaged in interstate commerce, it is a requirement of the seller to collect such sales taxes and remit them to the state.
Don't like it?
Then move to Somalia.
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This is about bringing jobs to California, not bringing jobs to America.
If a company moves from one state to another, does this make our economy somehow better?
Having states squabble and bicker and compete with each other for business does not help. It only takes up politician's time and adds bureaucracy and adminstration - effort that does not contribute to production.
Existing companies already have the employees they need to make their product. This is not true in all cases, but as a general rule it works quite well. Jobs come from new companies forming and from newish companies growing big.
We've done everything possible to stifle new business in this country[1][2], and this is just another card in that deck. Giving a break to an existing company creates a barrier for the creation of a new company which might compete. It makes the existing company weak and complacent.
If GE pays no taxes, it's hard to start a company making a competing product.
We could turn the recession around and have a vibrant economy very quickly if we could stop propping up stagnation, and focus on encouraging growth
[1] Innovation: Patent trolls, nuclear patent portfolios, submarine patents, court district shopping, DMCA, ACTA, losing tech to other countries
[2] Infrastructure: Rationed internet(data caps), net neutrality, spotty cell coverage, polluted water supply, inscrutable laws, discretionary enforcement, tax complexity, offshoring
Who do you think should pay for the roads that your products are delivered on?
If you're in California, then you're supposed to pay a use tax off those out-of-state purchases (Amazon or otherwise).
You do so, right?
Not really, it's ultimately the fault of the Federal Government for not requiring that Amazon collect. Without Amazon collecting it's questionable if state auditors would even have the ability to audit payments for those purchases. The reason that Amazon hasn't been collecting and submitting that sales tax is that it doesn't have a presence in the state.
Which ultimately leads to a bit of a problem, the state is going to have a hard time knowing whom to audit if Amazon can't be compelled to submit documentation due to a lack of jurisdiction.
I think you see where this is going, it is the law, but the situation is such that you're increasing your likelihood of being audited if you submit the taxes than if you don't as the state has previously had no way of knowing about the taxes not being paid.
Again, when engaged in interstate commerce, it is a requirement of the seller to collect such sales taxes and remit them to the state.
Says who?
What possible reason is there to fund things any other way?
Because, as my next sentence clearly states, you can fund a project based on benefit provided, rather than use. Certain individuals or corporations stand to lose much more if there is inadequate infrastructure, and stand to gain much more from the maintenance of said infrastructure. It is reasonable for them to pay a larger portion of the construction and maintenance of said infrastructure.
Duh. Businesses don't pay tax. 'Tax on business' ends up being paid either by the employees or the customers; so all the class warriors demanding that 'companies should pay more tax!' are really demanding that 'wages should be lower and prices should be higher!'
Well, since we've got corporate personhood, businesses can pay taxes. If you still insist that people are paying those taxes, I supposed it'd be the shareholders, not the employees or customers, directly paying those costs. I'm okay with that.
Again, when engaged in interstate commerce, it is a requirement of the seller to collect such sales taxes and remit them to the state.
Says who?
Again, it is a shame you didn't learn basic business or take US civics and the interstate commerce clause.
Now, go to Somalia and live in your Libertarian paradise and stop using my sidewalks, roads, and traffic signs.
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Umm, no.
Actually, the seller isn't required to collect sales taxes on behalf of a State unless they have a physical presence in the State (a brick and mortar store, for instance).
This was settled by the Supremes quite a while back when States tried to get Sears to charge sales taxes on catalog orders.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I didn't even pay for the book I am currently reading. I guess that makes me a fucking sleazy tax dodger, and a pirate. :)
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
I'm not a libertarian. I'm more left-wing than your "Democratic" party (for that matter, I'm not an American, either). And I fully support the use of Somalia as a reserve for libertarians.
Now, can you lay off the trash talk, and actually answer the original question? State law clearly doesn't apply when the seller is not in that state (having the package shipped there doesn't count as a "presence", as otherwise whenever you send a mail you'd be subject to laws of all states it passes through - clear BS). There's no federal law that makes it a requirement, either. And US constitution makes it clear-cut that only Congress can regulate interstate commerce.
If you want to have it changed, then feds would need to institute a special federal sales tax for interstate commerce, or otherwise help the states enforce it for such purchases. Personally, I think sales tax is a remarkably stupid idea and should be killed altogether (raise income tax on higher brackets to compensate), which is why I'm not cheering for California here.
Also, Amazon does collect sales taxes in those states where it's located and where its business facilities are (e.g. Washington, where I reside - so I pay a sales tax from my Amazon purchases).
The bigger mess is for an on-line retailer to keep track of sales taxes rates for every state, county, and municipality in the country. That's right, even the local governments are cashing in on sales tax, making it all more complex.
At least the consumer knows the sales tax for his or her area.
If governments want to collect sales tax for interstate commerce, then the government should maintain a database of these tax rates. Then, they should build an application with an API that retailers could query to return the sales tax rates for a transaction between two points.
I don't mean one just for California either. You get into the mess where each state has it's own API's. This would need to be one application for any location.
Asking each and every on-line retailer to build a system like this themselves and keep track of current tax rates is unfeasible, repetitive, and just plain stupid. This would put most small on-line shops out of business, and make the entrance level price for upstarts far out of reach.
It is called "Use" tax, which is defined in the instructions for form 540:
"California use tax applies to purchases from out-of-state sellers (for ."
example, purchases made by telephone, over the Internet, by mail, or in
person). .
This is followed by a worksheet which walks filers through the process of calculating the amount to report (e.g. on line 95 of form 540).
I guess I should say that CA tries to collect this tax. I have paid it every year I resided in CA (or other states that required it) for over 10 years. I don't recall ever meeting another person who claimed to pay it when the subject came up (granted, it rarely comes up).
I think as a country we are collecting less tax from internal sales overall, and suddenly the debt skyrockets...
You're equating falling sales tax revenues with a rising national debt even though there is no national sales tax. The two are entirely unrelated.
There are primary reason why the national debt is increasing is the trillions spent on the GWoT. The fact that the baby boomers are now starting to retire and collect benefits rather than working and paying taxes is also a significant contributor. It has nothing to do with Amazon.
Well, since we've got corporate personhood [boingboing.net], businesses can pay taxes. If you still insist that people are paying those taxes, I supposed it'd be the shareholders, not the employees or customers, directly paying those costs. I'm okay with that.
Yes, but no. The problem is that for business in competitive markets, like food and housing -- you know, the things poor people buy -- the margins the owners make are razor thin. When you go out and increase the costs (that is, taxes) on everyone in the market, the money has to come from somewhere, and since it can't come from the corporate owners (who will liquidate the business and invest the money in commodities, foreign markets, etc. if they can't make at least the pittance they do now), it has to come from the employees and the customers. Which is to say, poor people.
Then, to add insult to injury, most of the "rich" don't own publicly-traded "C" corporations -- they own private companies that are normally organized as an LLC which is taxed like a partnership and is not subject to corporate income tax. And on top of it all, the publicly-traded corporations who are subject to the tax and are large enough to have international operations hire a bunch of accountants and tax lawyers to restructure their operations so that all the profits are made in foreign jurisdictions with lower taxes and the US operations report minimal taxable income.
Corporate income tax is a sham. It taxes small and medium businesses to the benefit of large international operations and it raises the cost of necessities to the indigent. If you want to tax rich people, you add $1/gallon to the tax on jet fuel and create a new 50% marginal tax bracket for people who make over $1M/year.
Not really, it's ultimately the fault of the Federal Government for not requiring that Amazon collect.
The trouble is that there is a very good reason why they haven't: If they do then the states can enact de facto tariffs on interstate commerce.
All California has to do is establish a 15% sales tax and then use the extra money to subsidize local corporations or, equivalently, reduce their non-sales taxes. Then everybody who sells to California's large population has to collect the high sales tax, but no one without operations in California get the consequent tax reductions or subsidies that the high sales tax pays for. States with large populations can thereby force companies to move their operations there.
The equally undesirable alternative is that it forces states with smaller populations to adopt the same high sales taxes, even if they would prefer more equitable property or income taxes, because no company conducting interstate commerce will put a facility in a state with higher property or income taxes when they will still have to collect the high sales tax from the bulk of their customers who are in the more populous states. It effectively takes the choice of tax structure away from the people of those states without any representation -- which is the exact thing that putting Congress in charge of regulating interstate commerce was supposed to prevent.
That's a bullshit line of reasoning. They could do that in the same way that they could tax certain types of products which are only produced in other states, but they don't do it anyways.
That's really not that hard to do. If it were that hard to do, then you wouldn't see Amazon collecting taxes in any state correctly because they wouldn't have any way of keeping track of how much to collect in which locality. A multibillion dollar business like Amazon ought to have no trouble getting it correct. And smaller businesses would just buy the database information needed the same way that they purchase payment processing services.
At the end of the day, the only reason that this persists is so that companies like Amazon can make use of an illegal loophole to undercut brick and mortar stores.
What makes you think the retailers in one state are selling different kinds of products from the retailers in a different state?
There are a few providers of a sales tax database, and at least one that provides a calculation service, strikeiron.com. This may not be a problem for multibillion dollar businesses, but it is for smaller businesses.
The first method requires you to pay for monthly updates. It requires the business owner pay for a developer to write an data munging script, and/or an import script for the e-commerce software. It also requires the business owner to pay for a monthly import of the data into his e-commerce software.
The second method requires you to pay services fees. Many of these are out of reach for small businesses, which would force them to close. The only ones who could afford it are the giant companies you seem to despise.
Accuracy and liability may be another issue. With a database download, updates are provided once monthly. This may not be frequent enough to guarantee accurate tax rates. Ultimately, who is responsible for rate or calculation errors with either method?
If interstate sales tax collection is mandated by the government, then the government should provide free access to current and accurate rates. Given the increase in sales tax revenues that can be expected from mandating interstate sales tax, the cost to provide access to this information is negligible. A minuscule percentage of the sales tax revenues could be appropriated to building and maintaining this service.
I may not disagree that Amazon uses this as a loophole to undercut brick-and-mortar stores. However, there are certainly technical and financial issues with mandating interstate sales tax, which would hurt small e-commerce businesses and start-ups. Mandating this tax without providing a reliable, accurate, server based method of obtaining tax rates is a bad decision, IMHO.
One of the problems is that Gas Taxes aren't always spent on the roads. They go to rail systems and scenic bike paths that do not service any businesses, and in one case that i know of, they supplemented a local authority distributing HUD funding. Yes, they used the gas tax revenue allocated to the local municipality to buy HUD eligible homes to be rented out for just a bit more then the interest payments on the homes. The city will have a balloon payment to pay after 15 years. Once you figure maintenance into the costs, the city will lose money on it. but whoever sold them got more then the market price after it crashed.
Maybe he is confused between interstate and intrastate?
Are you talking about the Columbus Ohio city center mall? They used to bus people in from out of state to shop there, then it became all kids, there were some gang problems, and no one wanted to visit it. People who lived a few blocks from it would drive across town avoiding it to shop safely.
East land mall had much the same problems and is as you describe "an anchor store" but otherwise empty. Polaris and Tuttle malls kept the kid and gang problems down, but i haven't been to either in 8 or more years. I'm sure you could be talking about almost any city.
You're equating falling sales tax revenues with a rising national debt even though there is no national sales tax. The two are entirely unrelated.
Not completely. A lot of the stimulus money ended up going to cover state budget deficits which may have been exacerbated by falling sales tax revenue. (N.B. I don't actually know if sales tax revenue is falling, if it is falling due to online sales, or if the amount of the fall is a large enough to have a real impact on state budgets relative to e.g. income tax receipts.)
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JimFive
Please stop using the word theory when you mean hypothesis.
Having employees, business affiliates, or owning businesses in a state could easily be interpreted as having a presence in that state. I think that's the issue here. So, does Amazon's affiliate program count as a presence? I think that's a gray area that people could debate for weeks.
Instead, let's look at the elephant in the room. Does Amazon's Californian companies, which include A2Z development, A9 and Alexa, count as a presence? I think yes and the federal government generally won't interfere in a state's regulation of a business if a business is going to operate in that state. So unless Amazon wants to relocate those businesses I don't see any way out of this sales tax trap set by Sacramento.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Instead, let's look at the elephant in the room. Does Amazon's Californian companies, which include A2Z development, A9 and Alexa, count as a presence? I think yes and the federal government generally won't interfere in a state's regulation of a business if a business is going to operate in that state. So unless Amazon wants to relocate those businesses I don't see any way out of this sales tax trap set by Sacramento.
Yes, it's a matter of interpretation. My point is that Amazon does pay tax in those states where it undeniably has business presence, it just disputes that California is such. Whether it is or not can be settled by the courts if needed.