[Convergence]

Great news as Google itself is joining in the fight!

http://googleaffiliatenetwork-blog.blogspot.com/2009/03/sales-tax-legislation.html

[affninja]

CJ is lobbying against it too. I got this note last week. If you missed it, here is the text of the email:

As you may already know, there are proposed California bills that could require the collection of sales tax for online purchases similar to bills proposed in other states and that could resemble the law that recently passed in New York State. At this time, a hearing date for AB 178 has been set for April 13, 2009. As with all laws, if passed, these laws may or may not apply to you and your business.

Commission Junction is headquartered in California and impacted by the current California budget crisis. Nevertheless, we are opposed to the recently proposed legislation and are working with a lobbyist and other groups in hopes that we can influence the rejection of the bills' passage. Rest assured, we recognize that our industry and many of our clients may be impacted by these bills.

The application of the bills is dependent on particular business and factual circumstances, and Commission Junction is not in a position to provide legal and tax advice regarding the bills. However, we encourage you to perform the appropriate due diligence as it relates to your business. You may be contacted by advertisers in the Commission Junction network as they perform their due diligence.

Additionally, following are two sources of information on the proposed California bills that you may find helpful:

http://democrats.assembly.ca.gov/members/a14/News_Room/Press/
20090202AD14PR01.aspx

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/bilinfo.html

If you feel that you need more counsel on the bills, we recommend you seek independent tax and legal advice.


Sincerely,

Commission Junction

[Jorge - JRami]

'formal letter of opposition to the proposed California legislation'

Very good info thanks.

[ladidah]

Good to hear there is more backing for this.

Would be interesting to see how this develops.

[Convergence]

Remember the lack of "wiggle room" in Bill 178...

This bill would include in the definition of a “retailer engaging in business in this state” a retailer entering into an agreement with a resident of this state under which the resident, for a commission or other consideration, directly or indirectly refers potential customers, whether by a link or an Internet Web site or otherwise, to the retailer, if the cumulative gross receipts or sales price from sales by the retailer to customers in this state who are referred pursuant to these agreements is in excess of $10,000 during the preceding 4 calendar quarterly periods, except as specified.

Google, Yahoo, CJ and other companies in California can be the direct or indirect referers.

Merchants could choose to simply stop advertising on Google and Yahoo in California and of course, stop promoting on CJ.