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.
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by Anonymous Coward on May 15th, 2008 @ 12:02pm
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.
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Re: +infinity by Haywood on May 15th, 2008 @ 12:19pm
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.
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Money Swirls Around the Economy by JB on May 15th, 2008 @ 12:20pm
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.
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by Anonymous Coward on May 15th, 2008 @ 12:30pm
New York is the new Florida
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Re: New Florida? by JL on May 15th, 2008 @ 12:45pm
I thought Florida is where New Yorkers (City) went to die?
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by Gary on May 15th, 2008 @ 12:45pm
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.
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by Bah who needs one on May 15th, 2008 @ 12:50pm
Those ex-affiliates will even be paying less NY sales tax, having less money and therefore presumably buying less goods within the state.
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Overstock vs New York by Katrenavantassle on May 15th, 2008 @ 1:03pm
Is the dysfunctional state government why all the New Yorker's came to Charleston SC???
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Same here by Anonymous Coward on May 15th, 2008 @ 1:11pm
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.
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by Anonymous Coward on May 15th, 2008 @ 1:22pm
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.
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Re: by TSO on May 15th, 2008 @ 1:47pm
> 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
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by Anonymous Coward on May 15th, 2008 @ 2:01pm
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!
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EXACTLY how youa re supposed to do it by Anonymous Coward on May 15th, 2008 @ 2:47pm
Good job Overstock. Bravo.
Now if only people would do that to the music/movie companies represented by the RIAA/MPAA...
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by wasnt me on May 15th, 2008 @ 3:49pm
good job overstock, maybe amazon should do the same.
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Now its Amazon's turn by Josh on May 16th, 2008 @ 8:12am
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.
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by somedude on May 16th, 2008 @ 3:55pm
i'd pay to see amazon.com announce they were no longer shipping products to new york.
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Another angle to this law by Jason Forthofer on May 21st, 2008 @ 9:20am
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.
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by Bucknutty on Jun 4th, 2008 @ 5:28pm
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
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Re: by I hate NY on Jul 3rd, 2008 @ 10:37am
do you mean it's the new nations wang?
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