[Linda Buquet]

"If the person ordering lives in NY, I can see them having to pay sales tax. I think there are similar state laws elsewhere on mail order. But how do they intend to do the affiliate tax thing? I really don't understand it. Is it if the affiliate is in New York that they have to tax every sale he makes, whether the buyer is in NY or not? Presumably, in the states that have state income tax, they are collecting that from the affiliates, right? What does sales tax have to do with affiliate income?"

YOur 1st sentence is correct the rest isn't. I know it's complicated.

"I think there are similar state laws elsewhere on mail order."
No the only time companies have to charge sales tax according to current laws everywhere is IF the company has an office or store in that state.

The tax is not charged to the affiliate or just the affiliate sales at all.

The issue in simple terms is that EVEN THOUGH Amazon has no sale office, store or employees in New York, they are going to have to add sales tax to every New York consumer's purchase. The loophole NY is using to get all that extra sales tax for every NY Amazon sale, is that Amazon has affiliates in the state. So NY is considering affiliates as if they were employees and saying therefore Amazon has to charge tax.

So now if you are a NY consumer and want to buy a digital camera, you research and shop at Amazon, but when you see 8.3% sales tax added to your order, you may abandon your cart and buy instead from ABC Camera because they don't have to charge New York tax. Why? They aren't a NY company either, but they don't have an affiliate program, therefore they don't have to charge NY tax like Amazon does.