Do you recall that tax bill sent into law in New York State which requires some Internet retail businesses to require customers to fork over some cash and coin? It received the designation of “the Amazon tax” as a result of sheer caliber of business conducted by the online sales giant. Oh, and the fact that Amazon pledged to fight the state on the issue. That raised the profile of the story quite a bit.
Well, the law hasn’t been reversed since it was passed, and it turns out that anyone shopping from within the empire state have a mere eight and a half hours left before the tax is officially enacted. As mentioned by Allen Stern at CenterNetworks, starting June 1st, companies like Amazon and NewEgg will have to levy taxes on customers’ purchases if they opt to continue to have direct or indirect affiliation with New York based entities. Amazon in particular is known quite well as having prolific ties with affiliate sites.
Amazon is not the only Web-based retailer to feel the measure unjust. Overstock has also seen itself fall squarely under the new ruling. It announced two weeks ago that it would cut ties with partner sites based in New York, and, according to Anne Dujmovic of CNET News, announced just this past Friday that it had filed a suit with the New York State Supreme Court against the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, New York tax commissioner Robert Menga, and the state governor. Overstock’s argument falls precisely in line with that of past opponents of the revised tax law. The company’s general counsel, in referencing a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court ruling titled Quill v. North Dakota, said in defense of its case: