Affiliate Tax Alerts in Florida, More to Come

January 1st, 2010 is coming, and along with it new state legislation sessions. As affiliate marketers, you should definitely prepare for continued legislation leveraging Affiliate Marketing relationships to create tax nexus.

Many states will be heating up the legislation process on the Affiliate Tax, including the ones who couldn’t pull it off last year. It’s pretty much a guarantee that we’ll be seeing another attempt from California, Connecticut, Hawaii, as well as many new ones.

Early Buzz

From Melanie Seery at AffiliateAdvocacy yesterday.

Internet sales tax talk is already gaining momentum in several states. In Florida, Senator Nancy Detert has announced that she is continuing to research requiring merchants to collect sales tax on online sales. It appears likely that legislation will be introduced in Florida during the upcoming legislative session

…Affiliates in Florida and other states should prepare for pending legislation that will clearly require out of state merchants to collect sales tax. The 2010 legislative session will keep us busy as several states have announced that they will introduce legislation. Affiliate Advocacy will continue to monitor the activity.

And from Rebecca Madigan at the PMA.

“For the second time in several weeks, Florida newspapers have reported on legislators wanting to tax internet sales. DON’T JUMP TO CONCLUSIONS JUST YET. I’ve spoken to multiple lobbyists and policy experts about Florida, and there is no clear indication this has anything to do with an affiliate-targeting advertising tax. This mostly likely has to do with the streamlined sales tax, which would allow charging sales tax on all internet sales. Our experts strongly believe Florida will NOT implement an advertising tax because their financial leaders strongly support a streamlined sales tax approach.”

These appear on the surface as opposing viewpoints, and it would be unfortunate if things escalate in that direction, distracting from the real issues.

Instead, let’s look at the important message from both of these posts.

Stay informed, be proactive in understanding your state’s legislative climate, and be ready to take action. But also make sure you go with the right message. When you talk to legislators and even your fellow affiliate marketers, you can have the best impact if you’re well prepared and understand the lay of the land in that state.

Is Internet Sales Tax is Inevitable?

Many people think so.

The important question is, how will it be implemented? There’s a bad way that causes affiliate marketers harm. And there are other ways that cause no direct harm to affiliate marketers.

I’m thinking that our energy and limited resources is best spent on just making sure that affiliate marketers aren’t harmed. The fight against Internet sales tax is infinitely larger and probably not one we want to focus on.

What about Florida?

Is there an imminent threat to affiliate marketers in Florida? I don’t know, though the experts seem to think not so far.

Is it worth talking to your Florida legislators anyway? Sure. But if you go in speaking against legislation that doesn’t exist, you might not get as far as if you go in asking questions and getting a feel for where things are heading.

From the sounds of things, it is possible that we as affiliate marketers may want to actually support the direction they’re headed in Florida, or at least not fight it against it.

Follow a discussion on this at ABW in the Florida Affiliate Tax forum.