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Thursday, June 30, 2011

California killed my Amazon store

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California killed my Amazon store.  


In an attempt to collect sales taxes from stores outside the state, the California government has decided that my association with Amazon gives them a physical presence in California, thus requiring Amazon to pay sales tax to California when people buy things from out-of-state merchants. 

So Amazon has terminated all California affiliates.  Of course, this means that our state government will not get the sales taxes, and they will lose a huge amount of income tax. 

Meanwhile, little people like me are getting hurt financially.

Here's what Amazon said to me:


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

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6 comments:

Regan Lee said...

Very distressing news! They're not making it easy for any of us are they?

tuffy777 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
tuffy777 said...

the leeches in Sacramento don't seem to understand that they've already drained all the blood out of the taxpayers

tuffy777 said...

no more tailgating at rock concerts, either

David Wisehart said...

Yeah, Tessa, I got terminated, too.

:(

The crazy thing is, CA will probably LOSE tax revenue because of the so-called "Amazon tax."

In my own case, CA will lose some of my income tax (as I lose some of my income), but will not gain any sales tax from Amazon as a result.

So it's a loss for CA, a loss for Amazon, and a loss for me.

What a rotten deal.

The only possible winners in this are the physical retailers like Wal-Mart, who pushed for this tax as a way to hurt their online competition.

Instead of calling it the "Amazon tax" we should probably start calling it what it really is: "The brick-and-mortar protection tax."

David

tuffy777 said...

sorry to hear that, David

the thing is, since we've lost that income an we can still shop at Amazon, the fact is that Wal Mart loses, too