Illinois Legislation Threat on Affiliates

[Melanie10]

Illinois is one of the latest states to introduce legislation that could impact affiliate income in a negative way. SB3353 has been introduced.

Essentially what the bill says is that if an out of state merchant has affiliates in Illinois who in total generate $10,000 in sales to Illinois residents (in the previous 4 quarters) that merchant may be required to collect and remit sales tax. (It is a total of $10,000 in sales to all Il residents) As we have seen in other states, merchants may decide to terminate affiliates rather than collect the tax.

The bill is similar to the ones that are in effect in NY, NC and RI. It appears that there will be an ability to rebut the presumption of nexus.

Of course it is still very early in the process but it is better to be proactive and prepared. Right now the bill is in the Assignments Committee.

Link to the Illinois SB 3353
Illinois General Assembly - Full Text of SB3353

 

[Linda Buquet]

(Sigh) Thanks so much Melanie for letting us know! I'd read about it and retweeted your tweet, just hadn't gotten around to posting it here yet so thanks VERY much for doing that.

The good news is I think we have some very active and influential affiliate marketers in Illinois. Shareasale is there for one and I'm sure there team will be up for the fight. I know lots of others there too.

 

[Ron Bechdolt]

What, an earthquake and a a tax bill all in one week in Illinois? How much can an affiliate take?

Seriously, both can impact on ones livelihood and I'm sorry to hear that Illinois is trying to do this as well.

Thanks for the update. Is there a good site out there with up to date information for affiliates and merchants on what is currently happening or has happened?

 

[Linda Buquet]

Ron, the best places to stay up to date on all the tax issues are:

Melanie's site: Affiliate Advocacy

Performance Marketing Association

and ABW's tax section: ABestWeb Affiliate Marketing Forum - Affiliate Tax Laws

Also for the latest up to the minute info Twitter: <a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23advertisingtax">#advertisingtax</a> and <a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23noadtax">#noadtax</a> (We really need to get united on one hash tag as some people use one of the other or even both and it's hard to keep up with.)

NOTE: There are some other issues that have come up the past couple days.
California has a nexus bill back on the table, plus Nevada and Oklahoma. Also Virginia slipped something in at the last minute and passed it yesterday before affiliates could really rally and do too much, so it's already off to the Senate.

It's all happening so fast and I've been so busy I haven't had time to do all the updates here.

 

[Linda Buquet]

SHOOT! The California bill slipped right past us too and already passed committee and is headed to Senate. How did we not know they slipped this in???

Need to go start a CA tax thread again.