Amazon Re-Opens Affiliate Program In California

An anonymous reader writes "Due to Governor Jerry Brown temporarily repealing the tax law opposed by Amazon, the Amazon Associates Program has been brought back to California." Amazon will still have to collect sales tax in California in 2013 unless Congress intevenes before then.

Re:Makes me want to burn my kindle

[eepok]

Gasoline taxes pay for less and less of California's freeways and roads. This report (http://goo.gl/AgBO0) shows that less than 51% of freeways are paid for by what can be considered as user fees (registrations, gas taxes, etc.). The rest is paid for by bonds and other, unrelated taxes.

From the paper:

"The reasons for the decline in the share of highway costs covered by gas taxes and other âoeuser feesâ are not mysterious. The federal gasoline tax and most state gasoline taxes are not indexed for inflation, and the federal gasoline tax has not been increased since 1993. In 1999, federal gasoline and diesel taxes collected $29.8 billion for highways, and in 2008, the same taxes collected $30.6 billion for highways. Adjusted for inflation, the yearly taxes collected between 1999 and 2008 shrank 32 percent, even though we continued to build more new roads and bridges."

Re:Makes me want to burn my kindle

[CrimsonAvenger]

Again, when engaged in interstate commerce, it is a requirement of the seller to collect such sales taxes and remit them to the state.

Umm, no.

Actually, the seller isn't required to collect sales taxes on behalf of a State unless they have a physical presence in the State (a brick and mortar store, for instance).

This was settled by the Supremes quite a while back when States tried to get Sears to charge sales taxes on catalog orders.