Quote:

---

We regret to inform you that the Hawaii state legislature has passed an unconstitutional tax collection scheme that, unless vetoed soon by Governor Lingle, would leave Amazon.com little choice but to end its relationships with Hawaii-based Associates. You are receiving this e-mail because our records indicate that you are an Amazon Associate and resident of Hawaii.

Please note that this is not an immediate termination notice and you are still a valued participant in the Associates Program. All referral fees earned on qualified traffic will continue to be paid as planned.

But because the new law is drafted to go into effect July 1st, we will have to terminate the participation of all Hawaii residents in the Amazon Associates program on or before that day. After the termination day, we will no longer pay any referral fees for customers referred to Amazon.com or Endless.com nor will we accept new applications for the Associates program from Hawaii residents.

The unfortunate consequences of this legislation on Hawaii residents like you were explained in detail to key senators and representatives in Honolulu, including the sponsors, committee leaders, and House-Senate conferees. We also have explained by letter these unfortunate consequences to Governor Lingle, and have twice requested her veto.

Note that other states, including Maryland, Minnesota, and Tennessee, considered nearly identical schemes, but rejected these proposals largely because of the adverse impact on their states’ residents.

Governor Lingle's website is http://hawaii.gov/gov, the Hawaii legislature's website is http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/, and additional information may be obtained from the Performance Marketing Alliance at http://www.performancemarketingalliance.com/.

We thank you for being part of the Amazon Associates program, and we will apprise you of next steps.


Sincerely,

Amazon.com

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by BigRichard:
Well how annoying is that?!

Any chance you have a friend in a different state who could manage the referrals and money for you?

...or is that somehow illegal?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by ecgordon:
If the worst does come to pass, at least you already have a PayPal Donation button in place. All of us could contribute a little that way to keep the shiniest website afloat, right? Who's with me?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Peulsar5:
O.K. So what do we need to do.

---

Quote:

---

The U.S. Supreme Court, in Quill Corp. v. North Dakota in 1992, ruled that it was an unconstitutional burden on interstate commerce for North Dakota to apply a use tax on an out-of-state office supply company that had customers but no outlets or sales representatives in the state. The court found there must be a "substantial nexus" through a physical presence in the state to prevent the reach of state taxes from interfering with the national economy.

---

Quote:

---

Can someone explain why we're blaming the governor rather than blaming Amazon?

---

Quote:

---

The bill will require any online merchant (Amazon.com, Buy.com, etc) that has affiliates in Hawaii to pay Hawaii sales tax. Meaning if Amazon.com has affiliates in Hawaii they must then charge Hawaii residents 4.5% sales tax on all their purchases.

Currently Amazon.com and almost all other merchants do not charge sales tax on items sold to Hawaii residents. If this bill were to pass they would have to charge sales tax if they have affiliates. To avoid this tax many merchants such as Amazon.com will just dump all their Hawaii affiliates and advertising contracts with Hawaii residents. By doing this they won't have Hawaii affiliates and will not have to charge Hawaii state tax.

As you can see this is a not a good bill because what ends up happening is Hawaii will still not get their sales tax and on top of that they hurt Hawaii affiliates by getting them kicked off advertising network such as Amazon.com, Linkshare and Commision Junction.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Haken:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by BigRichard:
Well how annoying is that?!

Any chance you have a friend in a different state who could manage the referrals and money for you?

...or is that somehow illegal?

---

It's not illegal, one can setup an out of state entity, but it's really ridiculous to do that in my case.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by ecgordon:
If the worst does come to pass, at least you already have a PayPal Donation button in place. All of us could contribute a little that way to keep the shiniest website afloat, right? Who's with me?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Amazon just upped the ante in regard to similar go-se coming out of North Carolina.

http://www.news-record.com/content/2009/06/26/article/amazon_cuts_rela
tionships_with_affiliates

I am completely onboard with Amazons response to this, as I happen to be well aware that a "temporary"* or "emergency" tax is just one more bite that will grow and grow infinitely and flow into the pockets of the well-connected while the powers that be find other ways to stick the knife in using the same excuses over and over.

Well, the line must be drawn somewhere, and here's as good a place as any.

My money is on Amazon in this one, and as soon as the public bares a few teeth on it, the politicos will quickly back down, pretend it never happened, and pat the beast on the head till it calms down... while looking for some other way to steal from it.

We're Browncoats, folk - the difficult we do immediately, the impossible just takes a bit longer, we're downright mighty n stuff!


-Frem

PS: No Tax is ever "temporary" - here's a classic example.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_telephone_excise_tax

---

Quote:

---

Maybe we could do it PBS style and have a webcast telethon to raise money. Get some extra from the show to sing a terrible rendition of the Firefly Theme and then say call the number paypal operators are standing by.
-e

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by ecgordon:
If the worst does come to pass, at least you already have a PayPal Donation button in place. All of us could contribute a little that way to keep the shiniest website afloat, right? Who's with me?




wo men ren ran zai fei xing.

---