SleepyEgg

If things continue down their current path, Amazon's affiliate program will eventually go extinct in the US. Late Wednesday, California joined the growing list of states attempting to collect sales tax from online retailers like Amazon in an effort to help close the state's vast budget deficit. Amazon, in typical fashion, has aggressively pushed back, warning its California-based affiliates that they'll have their revenue streams cut off as of September 30 if the law ends up being enacted.

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? Like the many other states before it, California counts Amazon affiliates who reside in California as a "physical presence." So, if Joe Blow runs a personal blog with affiliate links to Amazon products (you know, to make a few bucks on the side), he is effectively "selling" Amazon products and making money from them via his home in California.