Just weeks after Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed an anti-small businesses bill into law, Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe has done the same thing.
SB 738, which Governor Beebe signed into law, requires online retailers to collect sales tax if they have affiliates in Arkansas and generate more than $10,000 a year in sales in the state.
Arkansas is the fifth state to enact this sort of small business killing legislation. Illinois, New York, North Carolina, and Rhode Island have previously passed similar laws.
The way it has played out in those states has been for the affiliate programs to kick out their affiliates, so customers continue to make purchases without paying sales tax, but the affiliates are then out of work.
Yesterday, Lisa Picarille and I interviewed Tim Storm, CEO of FatWallet.com, on the Affiliate Thing podcast.
We spoke about how the law passing in Illinois is forcing him to move his company out of state to remain in business. FatWallet.com has 55 employees, and they will soon be working in Wisconsin, where Governor Scott Walker has vowed not to sign such legislation if it comes across his desk.
Listen to the Affiliate Thing episode with Tim Storm.
More details at http://www.internetretailer.com/2011/04/01/arkansas-readies-amazon-tax-law.
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Yeah, the $10,000 amount has been used in the language in a lot of these bills/laws. I’d guess a good majority of affiliate programs would surpass $10,000 in TX.
Can I just double check that I read the figure, $10,000, accurately?
Even this low value is probably an overstatement of how much they will save in any case, i know that if I lost my amazon earnings I would have much less cash to spend in Texas, which means less money for local business, less sales revenue, and so on and so forth. We need to fight this every step of the way, it does nothing but endanger the incomes of thousands, many of which are on the low end of the scale, just because the high end stores are complaining that they are selling less of their overpriced products.
I don’t think the politicians realize how serious and willing to take action the affiliate marketers are with this.
Great to hear people speaking out.
If Texas does end up enacting the sales tax, I will be relocating my business. My Amazon monthly bonus is a nice addition to my consultancy income, and I do not want to lose it.
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