Affiliate Marketing Sales Tax Valnerability

If you are a beginning affiliate marketer you may not have given much thought to how state taxes effect our business. But one of the problems / challenges coming down the pipe is how states are looking at affiliate marketing and how they tax sellers.

From Wikipedia;

Sales Tax Vulnerability
In April, 2008, the State of New York inserted a item in the state budget asserting sales tax jurisdiction over Amazon.com sales to residents of New York, based on the existence of affiliate links from New York-based web sites to Amazon.com.[1]New York asserts that even one such affiliate constitutes Amazon.com having a business presence in the State of New York, and is sufficient to allow New York to tax all Amazon.com sales to state residents. It is expected that Amazon.com will challenge this in court.

[1] Linda Rosencrance,15.April, 2008), N.Y. to tax goods bought on Amazon, Computerworld,

from the article;

Amazon itself doesn't have a brick-and-mortar store in the state and therefore is not required to collect state taxes under a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. However the state contends it does have a physical presence because it operates through a number of local affiliates, Bergin said.

For info on Overstock.com's response;
Overstock.com Drops NY Affiliates.