Pull Up A Chair

UPDATE:

California Gov. Jerry Brown just signed the tax law, and Amazon promptly terminated it’s 10,000 California affiliates. A shame for the small business person running a website and trying to make a living, especially considering that it is likely not going to generate anywhere near the revenue the state is prediction. Amazon will not be the ony company dropping their affiliate programs for California businesses, either.

The retail sales tax bill won’t add nearly as much as first observations would indicate. The law is based on a nexus of business in the state. Amazon has a large affiliate program, where business owners can place links to Amazon.com on their websites, and be paid a commission for any sales generated from those links. In the past, affiliates did not constitute a nexus, but recent legislation has changed that perspective, meaning that Amazon is now considered to have a nexus of business in any state where they have affiliates.

The easy solution to the problem? Eliminate your affiliates in any state which passes a law that deems affiliates to be a business nexus. That is exactly what Amazon and many other companies with affiliate programs have done in other states which passed similar laws to the one California is about to.

In North Carolina, Illinois, and several other states, Amazon notified their affiliates that their services would no longer be needed and the company would no longer accept affiliates from that state.

That means that not only does that state not collect the expected sales tax revenue from those trans actions, they no longer get the income and business taxes they formerly got from those businesses that were formerly Amazon affiliates.

Your government in action, and the law of unintended consequences.

If "down time" means periodic breaks when the sales team leaves the show room then seating should be provided in break rooms, but there is no sitting in an effective retail selling environment unless it is with a customer. Cashiers? Sure. Counter help? No problem. Sales staff? Bad idea. Perhaps California retailers can get a government stimulus package to supplement the reduced sales revenues that a seated sales team is sure to create. Seems like too many attorneys and too little common sense out there on the left coast these days.

When I was on the sales floor I NEVER sat down unless WITH a customer. Customers don’t want to work with a salesperson they see sitting down. But I loved it when my co-workers sat down-made for less competition. There is no DOWN time in sales. There is always plenty to do. The problem with salespeople today is the same as it was back when I was in sales: laziness. They think that unless they are actually in front of a customer they are not getting paid. It’s why I consistently made over $100K a year while those who sat barely made $30K.

As for buying on-line: Buy in your LOCAL economy. Why would you support Amazon if you don’t live in WA? I don’t even buy at Best Buy on-line-I want my money supporting where I live, not MN. I have yet to run into a problem when I’ve presented my case to the manager of my local Best Buy, Barnes & Noble, RC Willey (or Circuit City & CompUSA & Ultimate Electronics back in the day) won’t match a price I find on line. I don’t deal wit the unempowered sale associate. I go to the store managers, who seem to always want the deal. It’s a win-win that way.

The shame of this is I am not surprised. Common sense is a concept that seems to be inconsistent with any recent legislation. Its NUTS. Regarding the sales tax issue... It must be one way or the other... All retailers must collect sales tax or no retailer should be required to collect sales tax. Common sense...
Ray Windsor
German Maestro

in my humble opinion ALL 50 states should eliminate sales tax to make it fair. they can tax based on income but why tax based on consumption?

Look free markets work, government dosen’t. I can see an across the board internet tax that is maybe 1% but anything more is just ridiculous. Simply put, if it costs more to buy something that I was buying online - consumers are not going to pay more money for it. Online sales will drop not increase because it now costs more money to shop online. More taxes slows commerce, not stimulates it. A very marginal tax percentage (like I mentioned earlier) would bring in some revenue that the state would not typically see and not affect the overall purchase price of e-tailers. When will politicians lear about the Laffer Curve? That the more taxes you charge the less revenue the government brings in because it chokes commerce.

Now as far as these poor little associates who have to stand during down time….tell them to get a broom or go stock the front. Thats what I had to do when I was a store clerk.

I'm not usually one to complain about government regulation, which I think on balance, has more positives than negatives, but these lawsuits over seating seem ridiculous.
It should be easy for big-box stores to provide a seating area and the seats that exist in the hallways of shopping malls should be considered adequate for mall stores. Smaller stores can put a few stools behind the counter. I don't think any retailers should have to pay fines if they remedy. But when I was younger, I worked in retail selling audio equipment and we didn't have anywhere to sit. I don't remember it being a problem. We sat when we went for bathroom or meal breaks.
As far as sales tax is concerned, I think Congress should finally resolve the chaos on the basis that a very higher percentage of sales now involves interstate commerce. They should decide that sales tax should be paid either on the basis of the location of the seller, the shipper location or the location of the recepient and end all these absurd fights over affiliate nexus and the like.
However, the problem with basing sales taxes on the buyer's location is that this would be extremely difficult for small businesses. Charging the right amount is easy (there are inexpensive databases with taxes per ZIP code that plug into e-commerce engines), but sending the sales taxes quarterly to 50 States and in some cases, many more localities, would be a nightmare that would put many out of business, so I think there would need to be a Government or private service that performed this task for very low cost.