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Memo from Amazon for California affiliates yesterday :

Hello,

For well over a decade, the Amazon Associates Program has worked with thousands of California residents. Unfortunately, a potential new law that may be signed by Governor Brown compels us to terminate this program for California-based participants. It specifically imposes the collection of taxes from consumers on sales by online retailers – including but not limited to those referred by California-based marketing affiliates like you – even if those retailers have no physical presence in the state.

We oppose this bill because it is unconstitutional and counterproductive. It is supported by big-box retailers, most of which are based outside California, that seek to harm the affiliate advertising programs of their competitors. Similar legislation in other states has led to job and income losses, and little, if any, new tax revenue. We deeply regret that we must take this action.

As a result, we will terminate contracts with all California residents that are participants in the Amazon Associates Program as of the date (if any) that the California law becomes effective. We will send a follow-up notice to you confirming the termination date if the California law is enacted. In the event that the California law does not become effective before September 30, 2011, we withdraw this notice. As of the termination date, California residents will no longer receive advertising fees for sales referred to Amazon.com, Endless.com, MYHABIT.COM or SmallParts.com. Please be assured that all qualifying advertising fees earned on or before the termination date will be processed and paid in full in accordance with the regular payment schedule.

You are receiving this email because our records indicate that you are a resident of California. If you are not currently a resident of California, or if you are relocating to another state in the near future, you can manage the details of your Associates account here. And if you relocate to another state in the near future please contact us for reinstatement into the Amazon Associates Program.

To avoid confusion, we would like to clarify that this development will only impact our ability to offer the Associates Program to California residents and will not affect their ability to purchase from Amazon.com, Endless.com, MYHABIT.COM or SmallParts.com.

We have enjoyed working with you and other California-based participants in the Amazon Associates Program and, if this situation is rectified, would very much welcome the opportunity to re-open our Associates Program to California residents. We are also working on alternative ways to help California residents monetize their websites and we will be sure to contact you when these become available.

Regards,

The Amazon Associates Team

THEN ….. TODAY :

Hello,

Unfortunately, Governor Brown has signed into law the bill that we emailed you about earlier today. As a result of this, contracts with all California residents participating in the Amazon Associates Program are terminated effective today, June 29, 2011. Those California residents will no longer receive advertising fees for sales referred to Amazon.com, Endless.com, MYHABIT.COM or SmallParts.com. Please be assured that all qualifying advertising fees earned before today will be processed and paid in full in accordance with the regular payment schedule.

You are receiving this email because our records indicate that you are a resident of California. If you are not currently a resident of California, or if you are relocating to another state in the near future, you can manage the details of your Associates account here. And if you relocate to another state in the near future please contact us for reinstatement into the Amazon Associates Program.

To avoid confusion, we would like to clarify that this development will only impact our ability to offer the Associates Program to California residents and will not affect your ability to purchase from Amazon.com, Endless.com, MYHABIT.COM or SmallParts.com.

We have enjoyed working with you and other California-based participants in the Amazon Associates Program and, if this situation is rectified, would very much welcome the opportunity to re-open our Associates Program to California residents. As mentioned before, we are continuing to work on alternative ways to help California residents monetize their websites and we will be sure to contact you when these become available.

Regards,

The Amazon Associates Team

Of course, anybody WITH a calculator will see, right away, that the sales taxes gathered once NO AMAZON AFFILIATE TRANSACTIONS GO THROUGH will be FAR less than the income taxes that WOULD have been delivered to the state from affiliates earning from those transactions.

In fact, it would have been less than the income taxes gathered even IF  governor Moombeam would have left well enough alone.

Remember, Amazon affiliates market Amazon products and services on internet WEB PAGES, to folks who are also living in (possibly, mostly living in) states OTHER than California.

The affiliates make income from those out-of-California sales, too, and then pay the normal high Californian State taxes on ALL of it.

Once again, Moonbeam has found another great way to “cut off his nose to spite his face” ………

Look for this to be reversed as soon as a real Republican Governor is elected …… and hopefully that will be sooner than later …… the state of California really NEEDS the money!!

As far as sales tax on internet-site-sold products and services in general, brick and mortar stores have historically based their premise of complaints on the issue that internet sites NOT charging sales tax have an “unfair” advantage …….. and can sell at lower “prices” due to the missing sales tax to be added on.

Of course, legally, even if customers purchase things online, they are supposed to claim AND pay “use tax” each year. Perhaps it was simply way too unpopular with California citizens for the state to go after those “taxes” …… or maybe simply way beyond the capabilities of the state to collect on those use taxes, so they chose to just go after Amazon (especially since eBay was granted an exception as the law went into effect).

And then there IS the fact that online purchases then have to be SHIPPED to the customer ….. bringing the question up about which is more expensive, the sales tax OR the shipping.

As far as “unfair” advantages ……. don’t brick and mortar stores, with their customers in front of them, have the chance to develop personal relationships, and the direct service, assistance and after sale sales that an online seller would NEVER have? Isn’t that a further mitigating equalization between online and brick-and-mortar stores? (especially if it keeps the government out of the process?????)

7/1/2011 – by ADMIN

“Amazon tax hurts Californians”

David Wolf, said the money he made from Amazon wasn’t a lot – usually no more than $100 a month – but he used the extra income to pay for his cable or phone bill.

“If this is the way it goes, I’m concerned that other affiliate programs will go away too,” said Wolf, who works as a Web designer from his Corona home. “And then I’ll have to look for another source of income to fill the gap. It is real money.”

Read the whole Los Angeles Times story HERE

“WHAT?????” they say to me.

“My commission goes to the person who is actually the customer buying the item??????

Yep …… you put together a nice marketing page on a nice  domain with a carefully chosen domain name …… and then included a simple affiliate link to the final transaction page for that item showing that “customer” exactly how to get the product AND the commission for the sale.

Fortunately, there IS a way to prevent this from happening to your sales …… and it has nothing to do with the commonly used URL “shorteners“, which is something that you should NEVER use for an affiliate sales link!

>>>> SEE the MENU at the TOP of this page <<<<<<

According to The World’s Glossary of Internet Terms, an Affiliate Marketer is defined as one who has:

“A business relationship with a product vendor / merchant or service provider who allows the affiliate marker to send customers to that business. When a visitor clicks on the link at the affiliate’s web site and then, subsequently, makes a purchase from the product or service merchant who is actually doing the selling, the affiliate, through their agreements with the merchant, receives a commission based on the amount of the sale, or some kind of referral fee,  OR a simple pay-for-click fee.”

The issue here is, of course, commonly a simple straight-forward agreement between a merchant and an affiliate marketer. As easy as this concept is intended to be, however, often times the budding new affiliate marketer will run into a problem when they try to reverse the success process. Instead of starting at the beginning, they try to start at the end.

Well …… the blog InternetMarketingThatReallyWorks.com, and it’s internal detailed blogs:

▓ – Affiliate Marketing – Tips, Tactics for Success, Training

▓ – AdSense Marketing – Tips, Tactics for Success, Training

▓ – Facebook Marketing – Tips, Tactics for Success, Training

▓ – Twitter – Tips, Tactics for Success, Training

▓ – Traffic Generation – Tips, Tactics for Success, Training

…… have ALL been designed to not only help affiliate marketers, often trying out their very first home-based business, to get a better detailed viewpoint on some of the more important issues in this industry, but also to avoid the common pitfalls involved with the process of grabbing a small part of the money exchanged between customers and online, internet vendors.