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From a bottom-line perspective, I bet Amazon would be better off if they simply dropped all affiliates based in New York and ban future New Yorkers from being a
by smoody 19y ago
From a bottom-line perspective, I bet Amazon would be better off if they simply dropped all affiliates based in New York and ban future New Yorkers from being affiliates. It then a) saves them the work of complying and b) eliminates the tax for consumers (my personal favorite). I believe fewer people in New York will buy from Amazon if they don't get the tax discount (except for certain books like tech books which are much cheaper than they are in stores here). And how much does Amazon make from New York affiliates anyway?
I'm surprised Spitzer had time to write up this memo given all of his other activities.
- fallentimes 19y agoI like this idea. And when NY affiliates complain, Amazon can point them to this story along with the contact information for the bureaucratic tools responsible for passing such a law.
- slapshot 19y agoYou really think any company would ignore the New York market (even just the New York affiliate market) over the extra few lines of code required to add a % sales tax to orders with a NY zip code? If this were Vermont, maybe. But not New York.
- bretthoerner 19y agoThey'd drop the _affiliates_ in NY, not all of the customers. And to assume that the main cost to Amazon is in developer time is crazy. When the customer base suddenly starts getting taxes, the 'savings' at Amazon is lower in comparison to other competitors, and so they lose actual customers.