Vote No On Bill – SB 3353

by Stuart Conover on March 1, 2010

Vote No On Bill – SB 3353

I was recently informed from The Performance Marketing Association that there is a bill coming up for vote in Illinois this year that is going to try to enforce an ADVERTISING tax on marketers online. They are basically attempting to impose sales tax on anyone who is advertising a product and sends them to the person selling it.

Basically anyone who has any sort of affiliate tax is going to get hit with sales tax beyond what both the customer and retailer get hit with. Let me get this straight:

  • I don’t take the money from the customer.
  • I don’t deliver the product to the customer.
  • I don’t know who the customer is.
  • I ADVERTISE the product.

But I’d be having an additional sales tax ADDED to my already taxed income from online referrals? Not only this but anyone I work with out-of-state would likely end contracts in IL as that is exactly what happened in New York, North Carolina and Rhode Island when they imposed the same tax. The entire tax they will try to take out will become non-existent by removing the ability for online marketers to even work with companies looking to advertise their products as they will stop working with anyone in the state to avoid the tax.

SB 3353

Amends the Use Tax Act, the Service Use Tax Act, the Service Occupation Tax Act, and the Retailers’ Occupation Tax Act. Provides that a retailer or serviceman is considered to be (i) maintaining a place of business in the State and (ii) engaged in selling personal property at retail in the State if the retailer or serviceman solicits business within the State through employees, independent contractors, agents, or other representatives. Provides that a retailer or serviceman is presumed to be soliciting business through an employee, independent contractor, agent, or other representative if the retailer or serviceman enters into an agreement with a resident of this State under which the resident, for a commission or consideration, directly or indirectly refers potential customers, whether by a link on an Internet website or otherwise, to the retailer or serviceman, if the cumulative gross receipts from sales by the retailer or serviceman to customers in the State who are referred to the retailer by all residents with this type of an agreement with the retailer is in excess of $10,000 during the preceding 4 quarterly periods ending on the last day of February, May, August, and November. Provides that the presumption may be rebutted by proof that the resident with whom the retailer or serviceman has an agreement did not engage in any solicitation in the State on behalf of the retailer or serviceman that would satisfy the nexus requirement of the United States Constitution during the 4 quarterly periods in question.

If you are an Illinois resident and are against this bill

Email Your Senators at the addresses below:

Louis S. Viverito

viverito@senatedem.state.il.us

James T. Meeks

senmeeks@sbcglobal.net

M. Maggie Crotty

crotty@senate.state.il.us

Susan Garrett

ilsenate29@sbcglobal.net

Mike Jacobs

jacobs@senatedem.state.il.us

Jeffrey M. Schoenberg

Schoenberg@senatedem.state.il.us

Chris Lauzen

admin@lauzen.com

Bill Brady

bill@bradyforillinois.com

Randall M. Hultgren

district48@senategop.state.il.us

Matt Murphy

senatormattmurphy@sbcglobal.net

Template to e-mail Senators

Subject: I oppose SB 3353 - internet referral nexus bill

Dear Senator [ ]:

I strongly oppose SB 3353, the dealer registration tax bill. If this
bill passes, the state will NOT gain additional taxes, and my small
business income will be devastated in the process.

My income is earned by selling advertising on web pages. I do not sell
on behalf of out-of-state retailers, I advertise. I do not take any
money from consumers, I don’t deliver any products to consumers, I
don’t even know who the consumers are!

[recommended: insert a few words describing your websites, and why
affiliate marketing is important to you – keep it simple!]

If SB 3353 passes, out-of-state retailers for whom I advertise will
terminate our partnerships because my business does not establish
nexus for them. When similar laws were passed in New York, North
Carolina and Rhode Island, over 200 retailers terminated their
affiliate programs, and many have promised to do the same in Illinois.
If these retailers terminate my partnership, my income will be
devastated.

This law would be futile: Illinois will not collect any new sales
taxes, and my business will be destroyed in the process.

I respectfully request you reject SB 3353. It will not earn any
additional tax revenue for Illinois, and it will damage my business in
the process.

Sincerely,

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Buy Zombie’s New Site Launch

by Stuart Conover on February 16, 2010

Zombie News

The Undead Are Online.. In Style

I’ve been working with Zach of Blue Tide Productions for the past month to map out and have him create a new layout for BuyZombie. As of yesterday the new theme is up and running. While I run a multitude of sites it’s clearly the most active of my sites and as it gets the most attention I felt it needed a website that didn’t look like it was straight out of the 90’s. OK it wasn’t that bad but if you had seen the old layout you know exactly what I mean.

Features

  • Visually the site looks spectacular: It has a clean layout, is easy to navigate, and has a featured section
  • Communication wise the comments were broken in the old theme. So as there have not been new comments in months we upgrades to Disqus to allow not just standard comments but being able to comment with Facebook and Twitter as well.
  • Speaking of communication we also made it easier to connect with us on social networks, RSS following, and by e-mail!
  • As there are more guest posters on the horizon there is also now an author box at the end of each post with a bit more information about the author of each post.

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BuyZombie Breaks 100 Fans On Facebook

by Stuart Conover January 14, 2010

A Little Social Networking Goes A Long Way – BuyZombie On Facebook
Last night I was looking at my fans on BuyZombie’s Facebook Page and realized I was at 81 fans. 81 seemed like such an uneven number and triple digits sounded like the best thing to have so I decided to ask on Twitter if [...]

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A Few Small Project Updates

by Stuart Conover January 12, 2010

Last night did not involve video games, movies, or reading. At least not all night
So I’ll start with the obvious, if you are a reader of this site I have switched over to using Thesis. While it is VERY clearly still on the default settings there should be changes coming over the next few weeks-months [...]

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Simon and Schuster Know How To Annoy Their Customers

by Stuart Conover January 5, 2010

Or, A Guide On How To Alienate YOUR Customers
Now this news is actually from last month. I somehow missed it last month when Engadget reported that this was happening but it was pointed out to me last night and I’m nothing but annoyed with the idea. I don’t care if you are lazy or enjoy [...]

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Blogussion’s Thesis Theme

by Stuart Conover January 4, 2010

Blogussion Releases Their Thesis Theme For Sale
While I was a bit town on writing a plug for Blogussion’s Thesis Theme (personal reasons and nothing you need to know about,) I cannot deny that Alex really knows how to put together a well designed and laid out theme. So aside from being built on the Thesis [...]

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Buy Zombie Receives PR4 Update

by Stuart Conover January 3, 2010

Buy Zombie Is Now PR4
Google started the year off nicely by giving Buy Zombie a long overdue Page Rank update to 4. While none of my other sites have gotten a Page Rank update with the last round, none were penalized so I can’t complain in the slightest! I haven’t been working the marketing angle [...]

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StandOut Stickers Knows Internet Marketing

by Stuart Conover December 29, 2009

This Is How To Entice People To Market For You
While affiliate marketing always helps to encourage people to sell your product, something about being able to make money, there is another way. If the product you sell is something that people want and doesn’t cost you quite a bit you can offer it to them [...]

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Playing Around With Thesis

by Stuart Conover December 17, 2009

Thesis – The Theme That Does It All
This one is going to be short and sweet since if you are into blogging and use Wordpress at all you know what Thesis is, if you don’t I’ll probably be doing a write up on it once I’ve had some time to fully sit down and play [...]

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A Day In The Internet

by Stuart Conover December 10, 2009

How Much Data Is Passed Through Online?
Not only is this entertaining but actually kind of useful for anyone out there who likes to try to know random Internet trivia. Some of what is listed here really is kind of interesting just for how much data really is transferred online and how it would be converted [...]

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