Amazon.com - Notice of Termination due to New California Law

[ManagerJosh]

Thanks to the wonderful shrubs in Sacramento, Our Career Politicans and Governor Brown, I got this in email today:

Hello,​

Unfortunately, Governor Brown has signed into law the bill that we emailed you about earlier today. As a result of this, contracts with all California residents participating in the Amazon Associates Program are terminated effective today, June 29, 2011. Those California residents will no longer receive advertising fees for sales referred to Amazon.com, Endless.com, MYHABIT.COM or SmallParts.com. Please be assured that all qualifying advertising fees earned before today will be processed and paid in full in accordance with the regular payment schedule.​

You are receiving this email because our records indicate that you are a resident of California. If you are not currently a resident of California, or if you are relocating to another state in the near future, you can manage the details of your Associates account here. And if you relocate to another state in the near future please contact us for reinstatement into the Amazon Associates Program.​

To avoid confusion, we would like to clarify that this development will only impact our ability to offer the Associates Program to California residents and will not affect your ability to purchase from Amazon.com, Endless.com, MYHABIT.COM or SmallParts.com.​

We have enjoyed working with you and other California-based participants in the Amazon Associates Program and, if this situation is rectified, would very much welcome the opportunity to re-open our Associates Program to California residents. As mentioned before, we are continuing to work on alternative ways to help California residents monetize their websites and we will be sure to contact you when these become available.​

Regards,​

The Amazon Associates Team​

GOOD FOR YOU JERRY BROWN! Not only have you not collected a penny in sales tax, but you now have dug a hole in the budget because we don't need to pay any income tax to you. Why? Because there's no more income to be earned from Amazon.com!!

 

[TheLaw]

Unfortunately this is just the beginning of the end of an era and I have also dealt with the same issue for different vendors. When the playing field evens out and all the states follow suit, I wonder whether all of this will return in some form. For now, many still buy "tax free" from foreign states but the world as we know it may be a thing of the past in a few years. Then again... who cares? The world is coming to an end 12/12 anyways, right? Regardless, my condolences on the death of the program. I know the feeling...

 

[Floris]

Oh, silly Ca

 

[ManagerJosh]

Unfortunately this is just the beginning of the end of an era and I have also dealt with the same issue for different vendors. When the playing field evens out and all the states follow suit, I wonder whether all of this will return in some form. For now, many still buy "tax free" from foreign states but the world as we know it may be a thing of the past in a few years. Then again... who cares? The world is coming to an end 12/12 anyways, right? Regardless, my condolences on the death of the program. I know the feeling...

I sincerely doubt it will return. It will likely be a very target program as most will likely open their program to such states where they have operations. They already have to charge sales tax there so it isn't much more painful to have affiliates on hand.

 

[jasetaro]

It's not just California... I got more or less the same letter a couple weeks ago after Connecticut passed a similar law. And it's not just Amazon who is canceling affiliate contracts based on these new tax laws, B&H Photo has also dropped their Connecticut affiliates.

 

[Andy.N]

My condolences.
Is the lost revenue a big part of your site's revenue?
AA is a growing revenue we depend on for the past few years so I can see why it will be tough for some people.

 

[jasetaro]

My condolences.
Is the lost revenue a big part of your site's revenue?
AA is a growing revenue we depend on for the past few years so I can see why it will be tough for some people.

Yes, for me, at least AA was far more productive than Adsense. I've lost probably two thirds of my ad revenue.

 

[AdamD]

Yuck
For those who had/have an amazon account, can't you transfer the account to a friend's name in another state?

 

[Andy.N]

You can't transfer name, only change address if you move. Amazon report this income to IRS.

Anyone receives AA revenue in the high hundreds or thousand dollar figure each month?

 

[maidos]

more like silly usa, with their law implementation/suggestion there wont be laws that has any real common sense anymore
http://shoryuken.com/2011/06/29/trolling-the-stream-by-ultradavid/

 

[jasetaro]

Unfortunately this is just the beginning of the end of an era and I have also dealt with the same issue for different vendors. When the playing field evens out and all the states follow suit, I wonder whether all of this will return in some form. For now, many still buy "tax free" from foreign states but the world as we know it may be a thing of the past in a few years. Then again... who cares? The world is coming to an end 12/12 anyways, right? Regardless, my condolences on the death of the program. I know the feeling...

This may be going off on a tangent but, didn't the Supreme Court rule taxes liker this unconstitutional in Quill Corp. v. North Dakota? Maybe I'm missing something, but to it seems to directly on point?

 

[grant sarver]

This may be going off on a tangent but, didn't the Supreme Court rule taxes this unconstitutional in Quill Corp. v. North Dakota? Maybe I'm missing something, but to it seems to directly on point?

A lot of that has to do with "use tax" as opposed to "sales tax". I once got hit with an onerous aspect of use tax. I produced tools and dies "in-house" for our manufacturing. We carried these at a high value for asset and depreciation purposes. Turns out (after a state audit) I owed "use tax" of more than $35,000. in leu of sales tax. The theory is that if I buy a set of shelves I pay sales tax. If I build my own set of shelves I'm "cheating" them out of the tax even if I paid sales tax on the materials. So, I'm required to pay use tax on everything that I make for myself!

 

[Luke B]

This doesn't surprise me. Good job California...good job. Add it to the ever expanding list of reasons businesses are leaving that state faster than the gold rush.

 

[Anthony Parsons]

And people wonder why I laugh when someone from the US talks about living in "The Land of the Free". Garbage!

 

[HannahP]

didn't the Supreme Court rule taxes this unconstitutional in Quill Corp. v. North Dakota? Maybe I'm missing something, but to it seems to directly on point?

The new California law was written specifically to circumvent that ruling.

Say what you will about California, but this isn't some foul little hillbilly backwater you're talking about. The economy of this state is larger than most countries, so what happens here will have far-reaching implications. Rather than doing a smug little California-sucks, or America-sucks dance, you might want to pull your socks up and prepare for a similar fate, wherever you are.

 

[grant sarver]

All Most of the states in the U.S. are trying to figure out how to collect taxes on internet transactions. They'll have to come up with some sort of uniform system. Forcing businesses to collect taxes for 50 states is untenable. Here in Washington State, every county has a different tax rate and every town, city or tax district has another. I don't know what the answer is.

 

[Bob]

Here in Washington State, every county has a different tax rate and every town, city or tax district has another. I don't know what the answer is.

Really? When did that come about? btw, I live in Montana, we have no State Sales Tax here, so make that 49 states

 

[Anthony Parsons]

Australia already has strict laws with tax... and the simple fact is regardless how you make the money, you can earn $6000 per annum from a hobby and not pay tax, anything above it, is taxable. Whilst it is always difficult to catch cash based work / cash based hobbies, they have their methods for that, but this is electronic transactions discussed here, which are near impossible to get away with already in this country... as the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) is plugged into every financial institution in the country as part of our legislative compliances, computers assessing every single bit of money floating around in your name electronically.

You think you're getting away with something, then suddenly you endup with a bill in the mail from even a decade back, as computing systems have found an anomaly, or recent data, that requires you to pay more or obtain a refund.

 

[Floris]

Adam Curry from podcast NOAGENDA told in last nights episode that his app-show and his book selling is now discontinued, that's 1500$ he's missing out (paraphrasing him).

Talk about getting kicked in the nuts, there goes ya rent money. Hey, at least the politician gets a good good good pay once he leaves his job, be it a good or bad job.

 

[ManagerJosh]

The list keeps growing and growing.....

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