
'Amazon Tax' Lands in New York - rms
http://www.internetnews.com/ec-news/article.php/3740056/Amazon+Tax+Lands+in+New+York.htm
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smoody
From a bottom-line perspective, I bet Amazon would be better off if they
simply dropped all affiliates based in New York and ban future New Yorkers
from being affiliates. It then a) saves them the work of complying and b)
eliminates the tax for consumers (my personal favorite). I believe fewer
people in New York will buy from Amazon if they don't get the tax discount
(except for certain books like tech books which are much cheaper than they are
in stores here). And how much does Amazon make from New York affiliates
anyway?

I'm surprised Spitzer had time to write up this memo given all of his other
activities.

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slapshot
You really think any company would ignore the New York market (even just the
New York affiliate market) over the extra few lines of code required to add a
% sales tax to orders with a NY zip code?

If this were Vermont, maybe. But not New York.

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bretthoerner
They'd drop the _affiliates_ in NY, not all of the customers.

And to assume that the main cost to Amazon is in developer time is crazy. When
the customer base suddenly starts getting taxes, the 'savings' at Amazon is
lower in comparison to other competitors, and so they lose actual customers.

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noonespecial
Cripes! Now even our _states_ are resorting to protectionism!

I wonder how long it will be before an online retailer just refuses to ship to
certain states because the tax code is too complicated there to make the sale
worth it.

That brings up another interesting question, how does New York State prosecute
someone in another state for a violation of NY state laws?

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dhimes
_I wonder how long it will be before an online retailer just refuses to ship
to certain states because the tax code is too complicated there to make the
sale worth it._

I bet they are hoping not long.

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gscott
By saying that the affiliates create a physical presence, I would assume that
Amazon would need to know each affiliates physical location (might not be the
same as their mailing address) and need to know the local tax code and apply
the local taxes as well as the state tax. Because of this, New Yorks law will
probably fail in court. New York cannot make Internet companies apply only
some taxes and not others it would raise a basic unfairness to the locality of
the affiliate..

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redorb
grass roots is needed, people in New York (and everywhere) need to know this
isn't right; Where were Amazon's lobbyist?! There are good things they do
sometimes (this should have been one)

