Not Gone

So last Wednesday California decided to join the growing list of states attempting to collect sales tax from web retailers to help find a way to close the state's black hole of a budget. Amazon.com on Tuesday sent me an email warning me that if California passed the law come 9/30/11 they would cut off their affiliate program, but Wed immediately after law passed they sent me another email saying my store was closed and my affiliate links were dead.

California's new law, signed by Governor Jerry Brown on Wednesday, requires online retailers to collect sales tax even if they have no physical presence in the state. How does that work when federal law states they have to have a brick-and-mortar store to qualify? My store had no bricks or mortar. Like the many other states before it, California counts Amazon affiliates who reside in California as a "physical presence." So, my personal blog with affiliate links to Amazon products (you know being unemployed, helped me to make a few bucks on the side), means I am effectively "selling" Amazon products and making money from them via my home in California.

You can go back and check it, I warned you that Gov. Moonbeam would be a bad rerun for California and he is living up to his name. The revenue loss from Amazon alone will be somewhere around $100 million. Not to mention all the small businesses that had to close. Timing couldn't be worse since today the new job report came out and unemployment is up to 9.2%.

It took me a while to decide if I would continue blogging at all. But I'm not gone, I will keep plugging away. If you like my blog and feel like contributing, please click the "Donate" button on the top right side of this screen.