AffiliateHound
June 2nd, 2008, 05:58 PM
After being absent for most of May, you've returned and answered a couple of easy questions. However, many more complex issues presented to you have still gone unanswered, and we have yet to read your opinion on what may well be the most significant legal issue ever faced by affiliate marketers - the New York Sales Tax issue.
A few questions on this issue:
1. What is your opinion on the law's constitutionality?
2. What is your reaction to the fact the Amazon filed its lawsuit weeks ago but never petitioned for a TRO to stop imposition of the law's requirements of collecting tax, registering as tax vendors, etc.?
3. What is your opinion of Overstock waiting to file on the last business day of May, after due notice of the effects of the law, asking for injunctive relief in their complaint, but not timely petitioning for a TRO before the law went into effect?
4. Do you believe that merchants dropping affiliates prior to June 1 can avoid the tax collection and registraton requirements of the law if they make sales to customers that were referred to them through affiliate websites after May 31, even if the merchant "crumbled" the cookie so as not to have to pay commissions to the affiliates? (Assume that for any involved merchant a) the $10,000 threshold was met and b) they had NY based affiliates in the preceeding 4 quarters)
5. Many theories on ways for NY based affiliates to change their presence from NY to another state have been discussed here, including a) while continuing to live in NY, registering their business or incorporating in another state, and b) selling their business for $1 to someone residing in another state and then continuing to work on the business' sites through some type of independent contractor or employment relationship. What are your opinions of these ideas?
6. Would the NY presence of an affiliate network be a sufficient nexus to require merchants to register and collect NY sales tax, even if they have no NY based affiliates?
7. Should the law pass constitutional muster, if subpoened by NY tax agencies, what is the likelihood that affiliate networks will have to turn over records that, among other things, detail information about affiliate's addresses and volume of sales referred to individual merchants?
Care to respond?
A few questions on this issue:
1. What is your opinion on the law's constitutionality?
2. What is your reaction to the fact the Amazon filed its lawsuit weeks ago but never petitioned for a TRO to stop imposition of the law's requirements of collecting tax, registering as tax vendors, etc.?
3. What is your opinion of Overstock waiting to file on the last business day of May, after due notice of the effects of the law, asking for injunctive relief in their complaint, but not timely petitioning for a TRO before the law went into effect?
4. Do you believe that merchants dropping affiliates prior to June 1 can avoid the tax collection and registraton requirements of the law if they make sales to customers that were referred to them through affiliate websites after May 31, even if the merchant "crumbled" the cookie so as not to have to pay commissions to the affiliates? (Assume that for any involved merchant a) the $10,000 threshold was met and b) they had NY based affiliates in the preceeding 4 quarters)
5. Many theories on ways for NY based affiliates to change their presence from NY to another state have been discussed here, including a) while continuing to live in NY, registering their business or incorporating in another state, and b) selling their business for $1 to someone residing in another state and then continuing to work on the business' sites through some type of independent contractor or employment relationship. What are your opinions of these ideas?
6. Would the NY presence of an affiliate network be a sufficient nexus to require merchants to register and collect NY sales tax, even if they have no NY based affiliates?
7. Should the law pass constitutional muster, if subpoened by NY tax agencies, what is the likelihood that affiliate networks will have to turn over records that, among other things, detail information about affiliate's addresses and volume of sales referred to individual merchants?
Care to respond?
