RIP Mike!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ber5DrM6dG8

Are you an affiliate marketer living and working in California? If so , this concerns you as it does me. Listen up…

You may or may not already be aware, but there is a potentially dangerous bill looming on the horizon that may seriously damage the businesses of California based affiliate marketers.

Our current economic recession has led politicians to look for new ways to collect revenue for the states.  Assembly Bill 178 proposes to levy a sales tax on online retailers who have affiliates that generate gross revenue of $10,000 or more per quarter who reside in California.

A similar bill was passed in New York in June of 2008 known in the affiliate industry as the “Amazon Tax”. But New York was only the guinea pig and set the stepping stones for other states to soon follow suit. Currently, California, Hawaii, and Minnesota all have similar tax bills that will severely impact our businesses as affiliate marketers unless we act.

So just how might this affect you if you are a California based affiliate? Well for some, it could put you out of business, literally…

Let’s say for instance, that you have a kick ass PPC campaign that is generating an average gross of  $20,000/mo. This is your bread and butter campaign and you’ve put all your eggs into it. It works on autopilot, makes money hand over fist. But….you’ve been unable to repeat your success with another campaign and are barely breaking even as you test new offers looking for another winner.

But much to your misfortune and the wrath of AB178, the advertiser to whom you are making a crap pile of money every month decides that they doesn’t want to pay a sales tax to California and hands you your walking papers. Goodbye $20K per month, and unless you have great credit or are an avid savor…goodbye affiliate business!

It is unfortunate, but many advertisers won’t fight the lobbyists and will dump the affiliates rather than have to pay the tax on income generated by that affiliate. Overstock.com did exactly this to their affiliates in New York.

So what can we do?

We’ll for starters, get the full background on this issue.

1)     Read The Bill
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/09-10/bill/asm/ab_0151-0200/ab_178_bill_20090202_introduced.html

2)      Read this Article in Revenue Today
http://www.revenuetoday.com/newsletters/aff/032609.html?mtcCampaign=6739

Take action!

3)      Sign the PMA Petition To Oppose the Bill (link on PMA dead, please send me new link if anyone finds it 04/09)
http://www.performancemarketingalliance.com/california-assembly-bill-178/sign-our-group-letter/

4)     Send Your Own Letter (Using this template)
http://www.performancemarketingalliance.com/california-assembly-bill-178/send-a-letter-to-your-local-assembly-representative/

5)      Join the PMA lobbying day in Sacramento on March 31st.
Email: lobby_day@performancemarketingalliance.com

6)      Contact Your Local Representatives:
Californai State Assembly, California State Senate, Twitter Schwarzenegger, Revenue and Taxation Committee Members
- Nancy Skinner – Tel: (916) 319-2014 (staffer: Liz Mooney)
- Charles Calderon – Tel: (916) 319-2058 (staffer: Tom White)

• Leave directs comments on the bill here.

With the growth of affiliate Meetup groups such as Meetup202, California has an affiliate force to be reckoned with and we can probably make some serious headway in getting this bill rejected if we all do our part in getting the word out. Be sure to sign the petition above and pass this information on.

Blog about it, Twitter it, blast your email list or meetup group…do whatever it takes to fight this AB178!

If you’ve hung out in the Wicked Fire forums for more than 10 minutes, then you probably made a rite of passage and experienced your first “Dick Roll“. Don’t feel bad, we all get Dick Rolled a couple of times in our lives, it’s all part of becoming a seasoned affiliate marketer.

If you don’t know what being “Dick Rolled” means…I won’t spoil it for you. Just do a Google search for “make monies online“. But when you hear “you spin me round like a record” start playing…you’d better find the power button to your monitor quickly!

I’m usually pretty careful these days on which links in Wicked Fire that I click on, but some asshole got me the other day with a Prosper202 link, hence me writing this post. (I’ll find out who you are buddy, pay back is a bitch dude

Is there a cure? Not that I can see, only prevention. Read the rest of this entry