RSS
Twitter
Overstock Cuts Off NY Affiliates Over NY's Amazon Sales Tax Law
from the nice-work,-New-York dept
Last month we wrote about how New York was changing a law to try to force Amazon to collect and pay sales tax in New York by defining any affiliate in the state as being an Amazon point of presence. This is a clear perversion of the intention of the law that only requires collecting sales tax if the company has a physical presence in the state. While Amazon is now fighting this law in court, others are taking more drastic measures. E-commerce site Overstock.com has declared that it will no longer allow New York affiliates in order to avoid having the state consider it to have a "physical presence" there. This would be an unintended consequence of such a law. In an effort to get e-commerce providers to cough up more in taxes, not only will Overstock not be paying those taxes, it just made life a lot more difficult for thousands of Overstock affiliates in New York.
Reader Comments
(Flattened / Threaded)
This sort of action pleases me greatly.
States think they can unfairly bilk people on sales taxes like this and that it will reward them in the end. The truth is that people will simply stop buying things and they'll dick the economy over in the long run.
Right now, I buy everything I can over the internet. I use Amazon's premier service (I buy a LOT of stuff from them - probably $15k per year just from Amazon alone).
If I had to start paying taxes on everything I bought? I would simply stop buying things. Period. I would wait until I visited my home town of Portland Oregon and buy everything tax free and in person.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: +infinity
Now they can lose the property tax those affiliates would have payed, along with the jobs they would provide. The people who would have worked those jobs would have paid taxes as well. Way to go NY lose lose situation. Grabbing defeat out of the jaws of victory.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re:
> If I had to start paying taxes on everything I bought? I would simply stop buying things.
Bad news for you: you have to. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_tax
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Money Swirls Around the Economy
New York will lose income taxes due to reduced income for these affiliates.
Taken to the extreme, these affiliates spend their income in the state, and now other NY businesses will have reduced revenue, so those businesses and their employees will also pay less income tax to the state.
End result: the state will STILL collect no sales tax on Overstock purchases, but they also cut their income tax receipts as well.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
New York is the new Florida
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re: New Florida?
I thought Florida is where New Yorkers (City) went to die?
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Re:
do you mean it's the new nations wang?
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
I spent the first 30 years of my life in New York.
I moved out of New York in large part due to the dysfunctional nature of the state government.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Those ex-affiliates will even be paying less NY sales tax, having less money and therefore presumably buying less goods within the state.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Overstock vs New York
Is the dysfunctional state government why all the New Yorker's came to Charleston SC???
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Same here
In Santa Cruz they over tax businesses so all the businesses left. Now Santa Cruz is broke and everyone that lives here has to drive to the Bay Area to work. Not very smart.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
is "payed/paid" the new "loose/lose"?
Outside a couple decent online camera shops, NY seems to be filled with a lot of online grey market scammers and bait and switchers.
Loosing (see what I did there?) NY affiliates might actually be a positive thing.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
What about every online store that originates in New York, like B&H Photo? If I, being in the dry heat of Arizona purchase online directly from B&H will I be force to pay the tax? If so I guess I'll find a none New York store to by from!
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
EXACTLY how youa re supposed to do it
Good job Overstock. Bravo.
Now if only people would do that to the music/movie companies represented by the RIAA/MPAA...
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
good job overstock, maybe amazon should do the same.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Now its Amazon's turn
I'd like to see Amazon speculate on doing the same thing. Or better yet, speculate on having to stop all deliveries in NY because of that law. You'd get all the customers in NY complaining, plus affiliates, plus other companies like UPS and FedEx that make a bundle shipping the products.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
i'd pay to see amazon.com announce they were no longer shipping products to new york.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Another angle to this law
Another angle on this law. It's actually the network that pays the affiliate (in most cases). It's the network, not the merchant that sends the W-2. Can this new law only apply to the affiliate networks based in New York, like Linkshare? Essentially, merchantes pay the network, not the affiliate.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
God I hate New York. We get creamed on sales taxes, property taxes, income taxes and gasoline taxes. We pay the highest fees for bridges and tunnels and forget about parking a car unless your willing to shell out $50 a day. Now we can't buy online without NY taking a cut. All that tax money to pay a corrupt and dysfunctional state government. It really sucks
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Change Address
Can we change address in our profile and be allowed back in?
Any help is appreciated.
Thanks,
Mike
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
OVERSTOCK SAYS NY STATE IS BACKING DOWN
According to their most recent earnings report, they said that NY state will reverse themselves since it will cost them so much to fight it in court. You can read the entire transcript here with the link going directly to the part of interest:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/85766-overstock-com-inc-q2-2008-earnings-call-transcrip t?page=-1&find=new+york
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
NEW DEVELOPMENT! NY MAY REPEAL THIS TAX LAW!
There have been some new developments in this on going issue. NY state maybe backing down according to this new Seeking Alpha article:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/86766-amazon-overstock-gamble-may-pay-off
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Overstock Cuts Off NY Affiliates Over NY's Amazon Sales Tax Law
I don't appreciate those decision blocking our economy.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Hi,
It is such a nice stuff and I really like it. Thank you so much for sharing.
Stella
FSBO
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Foreclosures
Foreclosures auctions attract huge masses of people in Austin who want to make a great investment. Owing to its cheap price, people prefer foreclosure properties. You can easily get finance and loans for buying such properties in the auction venue itself. Eileen foreclosures
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Tiffany rings
Christmas is coming, not have prepare the gifts for your friends? Tiffany rings will be the nice presents. Tiffany Silver is your best choice, because tiffany&CO have so many beautiful kinds of producsts. Like tiffany necklaces for your love while the tiffany bracelets for your best friends, and tiffany earrings for your family members. So now go to the online-store for your tiffany jewelry.
(reply to this comment) (link to this comment)
Add Your Comment