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NY State and the “Affiliate Sales Tax” Law…

May 16, 2008 by ShareASale 7 Comments

Hey all, I know there has been lots of talk about the new law going into effect in NY concerning affiliates, sales tax, and such…

ShareASale has always believed that affiliates deserve a right to privacy in this industry – as well as a balanced position on transparency that allows merchants to know the things that they need to know without the things that they don’t. It has, at times, been a hazy line – but along the lines of contact information, we have never felt that merchants had a right to this information unless the affiliate consented to giving out private contact information such as phone numbers, addresses, etc…

Regarding this law, it is important for us to provide the answer to the question that is at the crux of the law. As a merchant, the question is … “In the past year (or other time frame) what was my total gross sales generated from affiliates residing in the state of NY.”

As such, our first response to this will be to provide this report which will allow merchants to know where they stand regarding the law.

Our plan at this time, is to treat any case where a merchant wishes to terminate NY affiliates with great care and caution. If a merchant requests to do this, there is little we can do to stop them – but ShareASale will be performing the task so that merchants aren’t accessing information which traditionally is considered private within the network.

There is a chance that this plan will not work. My hope is that we can warn merchants that terminating NY is a bad plan – and one that needs rethinking. If our plan doesn’t work – and we end up needing to provide more information to merchants, we may end up having to do so… I say this as a heads up to affiliates because while we don’t like to give out info, we also don’t want to put merchants in a place that makes it difficult to adhere to the laws of their state or others.

We can’t offer legal advice to to merchants and/or affiliates regarding these laws. But I can offer my extreme dissatisfaction with the State of NY for their short term thinking and complete disregard for their citizens. I am personally confident that this will all be reversed and I am hopefull that for those affiliates in NY – it comes sooner rather than later.

As a Merchant on ShareASale – there is now a report under the heading of “New York Affiliate Revenue” which will provide you with the data that you need to make decisions.

Filed Under: Alert! Tagged With: #affiliatetax, Brian Littleton, general news, tax

ShareASale

ShareASale

Comments

  1. peter bordes says

    May 19, 2008 at 7:05 am

    Brian
    We are working to put together a voice for our affiliate marketing community to address this issue. Also to start working on brining this and fragmented interactive marketing community together.

    I look forward to comparing notes and what info you find. I Hope others will also participate and work together on this issue which is possibly going to spread to CA next.

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Overstock Your PR Sucks - Plus Affiliates Fight NY Tax Law (OSTK) - 5 Star Affiliate Marketing Blogs says:
    May 16, 2008 at 1:50 pm

    […] RELATED UPDATE – 12:05: Shareasale, so far, to my knowledge, is the only network that has made a public policy statements about New York affiliates and how this tax issue will be handled. Brian blogged today regarding how affiliate privacy issues will be balanced with getting merchants the information they need to comply with the New York law: NY State and the “Affiliate Sales Tax” Law… […]

    Reply
  2. ShareASale On the NY Affiliate Sales Tax : CostPerNews says:
    May 16, 2008 at 2:08 pm

    […] Brian Littleton of ShareASale weighs in on how his network plans to address the delicate situation surrounding the NY state tax on affiliate revenues and provides a nice model that other networks may want to consider (both in terms of practice as well as openness with the affiliate community): ShareASale Blog » NY State and the “Affiliate Sales Tax” Law…: “Our plan at this time, is to treat any case where a merchant wishes to terminate NY affiliates with great care and caution. If a merchant requests to do this, there is little we can do to stop them – but ShareASale will be performing the task so that merchants aren’t accessing information which traditionally is considered private within the network. […]

    Reply
  3. 5 Star Affiliate Marketing Forums says:
    May 16, 2008 at 2:29 pm

    New York Affiliate-Based Sales Tax Law – IMPORTANT!…

    I hoped this New York Affiliate Sales Tax problem that Elliot Spitzer started right before the hooker episode would die out, but looks like it could go through. I’ll link to places with more info for ……

    Reply
  4. Stupid New York Tax Law Gets Affiliates Axed says:
    May 19, 2008 at 10:59 am

    […] Brian Littleton of ShareaSale reports on his blog that he is reluctant to give merchants access to information normally considered private and that he’ll warn merchants that “that terminating NY is a bad plan – and one that needs rethinking.” […]

    Reply
  5. 72 Kilowatts Affiliate Marketing » Blog Archive » Merchant Responsibility and the New York Tax Law says:
    May 22, 2008 at 10:32 am

    […] 1.)  Merchants, not the networks, are responsible for determining how much revenue their New York affiliates are generating.  While it certainly would be helpful for networks to provide that info, such as Shareasale has, the ultimate responsibility will fall on the merchant, especially since a nexus could be in fact established via other means, outside of tradional affiliate marketing as we know it. […]

    Reply
  6. Merchants - Extremely URGENT Re New York Tax Law - 5 Star Affiliate Marketing Blogs says:
    May 22, 2008 at 11:50 am

    […] Merchants with affiliate programs on networks are not privy to affiliate addresses and have no way to run a report of sales based by affiliates in New York. The exception being Shareasale who jumped right on this and set up a report for merchants, Kudos again to Brian and team! The last I heard merchants on the major affiliate networks have been unable to get sales figures for NY-based affiliates. […]

    Reply

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