California vs. Online Retailers

Are there any more businesses that they can chase out of the state??

Never let pesky things like the constitution get in the way of your ideals...

It was my understanding that interstate commerce is the sole realm of the federal government in the US? How can a state write a law that mandates people from out of state to do anything?

Dear Amazon,

Screw the morons running CaliforniaMexico.

Move to Texas where your business is welcome.

good way to kick up the ebook buying in California.

Are there any more businesses that they can chase out of the state??

Yes, but most of them involve drugs, body piercings, or leather clothing.

"Amazon ends deal with 25,000 California websites"

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/amazon-306409-affiliate-california.html

Congrats Mr. Brown!

I love spending money in California and tip generously when traveling there several times a year. However, since I live elsewhere, I refuse to pay sales tax twice on my online purchases.

Jerry Brown has little understanding on market forces and should concentrate on improving commerce, not stifling it.

Amazon is doing the right thing.

Amazon isn't only going to stop using those state's exports, they are also going to stop delivering imports from other states to the residents of those states.

List of states Amazon won't do business in:

Texas, Colorado, Connecticut, Arkansas, Illinois, Hawaii, Rhode Island, North Carolina and now California.

Brown obviously believes that increasing taxes results in more revenue.

Except it doesn't always. A change in tax laws induces a change in behaviour, in some cases producing results that are opposite than those expected.

Like when companies engaging in interstate commerce make sure that they locate somewhere other than California.

"How can a state write a law that mandates people from out of state to do anything?"

They can't, so they're trying to change what the "definition of 'is' is" by arguing that Amazon's independent affiliates constitute a physical presence in the states where those affiliates are located. It's an absurd argument, and so far Amazon has decided the path of least resistance is to simply sever its relationships with affiliates in the affected states.

Other states have tried similarly tenuous arguments, such as if Amazon has a web server physically hosted in some data center in the state, that constitutes a commerce "nexus" obligating them to collect sales tax on all sales made to customers in that state. It's ridiculous.

Not only will being cut off from Amazon sales kill a lot of businesses, but it will lower the competitiveness of those businesses plus the struggling businesses have to pay up to 3 years back taxes on sales?
Wow, talk about job killing legislation.

"Brown obviously believes that increasing taxes results in more revenue."

Except the point of this tax isn't to raise revenue; it's just a kickback to the brick-and-mortar retailers.

How would one know this? Well, (a) it was supported by all the non-mail-order stores, and (b) like Eskimos, the native language of the Californians has no word for "revenue", but 73 words for "disbursement".

About damn time businesses started the fight back.

Sadly, Brown is still the best thing for the state. To his credit, he defunded the awful Redevelopment Agencies a couple days ago.

libertariansaresmarter

"Sadly, Brown is still the best thing for the state. To his credit, he defunded the awful Redevelopment Agencies a couple days ago."

"libertarian" = anarchist in newspeak...
sorta like "progressive" = communist.

A stopped clock is right twice a day.....
Mussullini made the trains run on time.

Sasquatch redux: I can't make a real point, so I'll slander political viewpoints I don't understand as 'anarchist'.

more proof that ALL politishuns are in *somebody's* pocket.

Most states and provinces have reciprocal agreements to make available to other tax authorities data on out of state purchases where no sales tax was collected.
It is then the choice of the home state to go after the resident for the tax owing but it usually isn't economically viable.

It is interesting that the US today is in the same position Canada was prior to the introduction of the GST. The American federal government has the right to tax US
products leaving the factory door but has no right to levy a tax at the ports on imports coming into the country. The answer is dumping fed taxes on US products and
bringing in a federal VAT consumption tax on everything at point of sale.

Very odd there seems to be little pressure from the left or the right to implement such an obvious benefit to helping American industry become more competitive.
Perhaps the Feds are hoping to get the states' agreement to merge their systems into it
.

California long ago dug its own financial grave. Jerry Brown will preside over its burial.
The vultures have eaten the carcass of a once fat economy to the marrow.
Taxes used as teeth to devourer the life of a peoples hard work to enrich special intereststs with an ideology prov-enen to be fatal to all commerece or personel growth.
JMO

Watch CA tax revenue decrease and then they'll impose yet more taxes. Governments are incapable of learning from experience.

In BC, since the HST has been introduced, I haven't eaten in a restaurant (unless a drug company was picking up the tab) or bought a book or magazine in BC. Most of my ordering is online and maybe 1 in 5 times do I get hit with HST on the purchase. This was my response to this idiotic tax and I'm sure the BC government has lost far more tax revenue from me over the last year than it might have gained from the HST had I kept up my previous habits.