Comments on: North Carolina Shoots Own Foot By Threatening Amazon To Charge Sales Tax

By: Maria Romana

Maria Romana — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 02:48:05 +0000

As usual, legislators show their woeful lack of foresight and just plain knowledge of simple finance. Taxation NEVER improves the economy! It only hurts. The more we pay in taxes for services that we may or may not use or want, and which are never provided optimally priced (is any government agency efficiently run?), the less we have to voluntarily spend on the things we do want to purchase from private, optimized businesses. It bears repeating: increasing taxation is _always_ harmful to the economy. And I am a resident of NC!

By: Thor Schrock

Thor Schrock — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 18:58:30 +0000

Your criticism of the sales tax would be legitimate if all citizens paid income taxes. The use of a progressive tax code means that nearly half of people don’t pay income taxes at all.

This means that people like you and I that do pay taxes have to pay more than our share.

North Carolina really messed up here, and other states – especially smaller states – should take notice.

Imagine what a state like Nebraska could accomplish if their legislature passed a law stating there would NEVER be an online sales tax? Imagine the jobs and economic growth that could be generated as operations like Amazon flocked to the state.

By: Chris (Admin)

Chris (Admin) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:09:18 +0000

NC Affiliate: All of us other affiliates sympathize greatly with you, and I understand how comments like PureWebDevs can come off callous..

However, we are all also consumers, so we don’t like to see Amazon get bullied on sales tax.

In the end, we are just glad to see Amazon stand up for themselves and set a precedent for other states.

Now it is up to you to contact your state representatives and bitch that their bullying cost you your livelihood, and tell them to get on one knee and ask Amazon for their affiliates back or you’ll boot them next election.

While your at it, convince them to do damage control by implementing some ecommerce-friendly legislation so NC doesn’t hear the giant sucking sound of whatever ecommerce business they have leaving the state.

Articles like mine, and comments like PureWebDevs are meant to shame North Carolina in that they have screwed their constituency by getting greedy, and help force them to backtrack.

But they will only respond to their voters – YOU have to call them and tell them what to do next.

I’m very, very sorry that you are in that position, though, but glad you are speaking up and making your voice heard.

By: NC Affiliate

NC Affiliate — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:55:03 +0000

PuReWebDev:

Excuse me, but what about us, the affiliates in NC who are now out of business? You said your business relies on the Amazon Associates program. Guess what? So do the businesses of people in NC.

The people that are suffering are the affiliates. I hope your state doesn’t pass similar legislation but for now, I’m struggling for my very livelihood. Comments like yours are cruel and uncaring.

By: PuReWebDev

PuReWebDev — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:54:29 +0000

I think it serves NC right for trying to be greedy. My particular business relies on the success of the Amazon Associates program, so we’re hoping that the other states have learned a good lesson from this.