[akagorilla]

Amazon is surprisingly silent on the Georgia tax issue. As of right now, I'm still an affiliate. I smell a conspiracy.

This was in today's Atlanta Journal.

[thl99]

I've been waiting for a lot of terminations that never appeared, including amazon.com and Zappo's. With the exception of a small group that we received several months ago, nothing has happened.

And to make this even stranger, I just went on the websites of amazon.com, Zappo's, and shoebuy.com and entered orders (that I cancelled at checkout) using affiliate links. None of the three showed any sales tax to be collected, and my affiliate links worked fine.

This doesn't make any sense. The Performance Marketing Association, via an earlier post on this topic, indicated the law went into effect on 12/31/12 -- that was 10 hours ago. The AJC article says the law will be effective tomorrow (1/1/13). We'll see -- I'll place some more dummy orders tomorrow and see what happens.

What is puzzling here is that virutally none of the merchants have sent out terminations. It's a nonevent -- ??

[akagorilla]

Honestly, Georgia affiliates do not really make a dent in any of my programs. Their total sales are a very small percentage. I expect many merchants just won't bother.

[thl99]

Maybe. But they bothered in other states. Georgia is very quiet. Even if amazon is cutting a separate deal, why haven't we had the flood of terminations that affiliates in other states have received? Strange.

[thl99]

One other point -- both Zappo's and shoebuy are CJ affiliates. But the terminations in other states didn't seem to be related to the particular affiliate network.

[Chuck Hamrick]

After reading the article and IMHO it sounds like Amazon is in negotiation with the state. The law take effect tomorrow so it may show up on Amazon's cart as collecting sales tax. When did Overstock boot Georgia affiliates when the new law was to take effect in October?

I find this interesting:

There is not yet any indication that online retailers began collecting taxes from their customers since that piece of the law went into effect in October, said Ken Heaghney, Georgia’s fiscal economist. MacGinnitie said it was too early to tell whether any online retailers were paying new taxes to the state.

Do they not report tax revenue in the following month?

[akagorilla]

These people have no clue what they are doing. It was all done to make the state look like they were doing something about budget shortfalls and giving the retailers a win against the evil online people.

[JCrooks - AffiliateWindow]

From that article, looks like tomorrow is D-Day. Good luck you guys! I haven't had any merchants ask me to ID their GA affiliates yet, so fingers crossed for you.

[Chuck Hamrick]

These people have no clue what they are doing. It was all done to make the state look like they were doing something about budget shortfalls and giving the retailers a win against the evil online people.

An that they are saving Brick & Mortar stores from the evils of online eCommerce. Knowing that there never could be full research done but it was would be interesting to see how many affiliate who generate income to the state as well as paying taxes (all kinds) versus what the B&M would gain by wiping them out since affiliates in other states could then replace them for Amazon sales in Georgia.

[JCrooks - AffiliateWindow]

In Colorado, they wanted to put an estimated collection amount of $5MM to balance the budget as required by law. In actuality they collected $20,000, so we had a $4,999,980 shortfall from that alone. And now the legislation was found unconstitutional too, but the proponents at least got to spend $10MM because the revenue was "anticipated." Government in action!

[msladybug]

Waiting and watching here. I haven't received many termination emails either.

[thl99]

Just got one a couple of hours ago -- from 1-800-PetMeds -- "We regret to inform you that 1-800-PetMeds has removed you from their Affiliate Program due to your location in California, North Carolina, Illinois, Connecticut, New York, Rhode Island, or Georgia. Advertisers in this state are being removed due to the State Tax Nexus law recently passed. If you change addresses to a neighboring state please contact us and we will let you back into our program."

Sort of last minute.

[AffiliateHound]

These is a brief thread today on the Amazon Assoc Discussion Board where someone posted that Amazon may not terminate GA affiliates as one of their subsidiaries, Fabrics.com, has a GA facility and thus they may have to start collecting GA sales tax regardless.

Someone else did post that they had received several terminations from other merchants.

[akagorilla]

Its kind of like the Mayan Apocalypse and Y2K.

[thl99]

Just placed an order with amazon -- no sales tax. Something is fishy.

[JCrooks - AffiliateWindow]

Did you buy it from Amazon, or from someone with an Amazon store?

[thl99]

Direct from amazon

[JCrooks - AffiliateWindow]

Fingers crossed for you guys then! When the law passed in Colorado, even though it didn't include affiliates for nexus, we were all dropped by Amazon pretty fast anyway, before the bill became long.

[akagorilla]

I had to explain it to CBS Atlanta news yesterday but they cancelled the segment. The expectation from the media is that everyone in the state would be paying an extra 8% for every online purchase. They clearly have no idea how it's done or what the real story is.

[JCrooks - AffiliateWindow]

Gee, the media not understanding the complexities of the legislation? I'm stunned - NOT!

We ran into the same problems here in Colorado. What seemed to help was personalizing the story, using a single affiliate in the middle of nowhere and explaining how it affected them, then building on that.

I know it's later for you guys, since the legislation is live, but always worth a try. Keeping my fingers crossed for GA affiliates!

[akagorilla]

Education for the local media in Georgia - 2013 Georgia Affiliate Tax Update.

[Chuck Hamrick]

Did you send this to local media outlets?

[akagorilla]

Originally Posted by Chuck Hamrick

Did you send this to local media outlets?

Not yet, but I know several have been reading my blog.

[thl99]

So now we've finished up the first full business day after the holiday, and still nothing from our merchants. There are several good theories on this, but none of them explain why merchants who were very proactive in terminating affiliates in other states haven't done so in Georgia. Amazon and Zappo's may have a good reason to begin paying tax (although they are apparently still not collecting it), but what about the other merchants? Affiliates in other states had long lists of terminations well before the effective dates of their nexus laws. But in Georgia, almost nothing. Strange.

I do hope this is a nonevent, but it's tough to plan 6 and 12 months out with this hanging over our heads.

[turf]

Same boat here. I am a Georgia affiliate and gotten notices from about half my programs but nothing lately. I originally had very few links for Amazon but as the other affiliates dropped me I moved a bunch of links to them so I could get some commissions through the holiday season.

I was wondering if it's a possibility that a large vendor like Amazon might just simply ignore the law - not collect taxes or drop affiliates. Then wait until Georgia takes them to court over the matter. In other words, be reactive instead of proactive. There might be some legal advantage in doing it this way, like allowing it to come to a head in such a red state. Granted, I know little about politics or law and this is wild speculation and there are probably much more likely reasons.