Here comes the Internet Tax
by lschach on May.27, 2009, under Commentary
The free internet is about to go the way of the dodo bird, From American Spectator:
New York’s legislation… (requires) …online retailers to collect state and local sales tax if they had affiliate advertisers within the state. (It depends on what the meaning of physical presence is?) Affiliate advertisers basically consist of websites, often run by small businesses or organizations like the Parent Teacher’s Association, that carry advertisements from other online retailers, like Overstock.com or Amazon.com. As a result of the massive administrative costs that the law would have imposed, Overstock.com immediately terminated its relationship with approximately 3,400 affiliates. Jonathan Johnson, Overstock.com’s president, explained that “New York’s law made the cost of doing business with affiliates based in New York prohibitively high.”
That’s why New York is at the bottom of the list of states when it comes to personal freedoms….
