Thursday, June 30, 2011

Stick em up!


Taxes, what a fun thing to write about. I received an email yesterday that my Amazon associate account has been canceled.
End.
Finis.
Terminado.
Kaput.

I have to take my hat off to Amazon, even though they are canceling thousands of associates that are registered in California.
Simply because they do not want to charge tax for shipments into California. They do not want to be the tax collector for the State of California....
Can you blame them?

Oh I am sure that there are several people that will say of course!, it's just part of them doing business.

Ok, what about the associates?

Associates are ones that have a link on their site that carries an interested party to Amazon to order a book or a Kindle or anything that Amazon has. You then get a big fat commission check amounting to 3 to 10 % depending on the item. Ok, maybe not so fat....

So now lots of people in California will not get a little income that they probably could have used.
Well, Amazon can afford to collect tax.
Yeah.
There are associates in Mexico, Honduras, All of Central America and lots of places....those are not effected, as long as you don't have your account in California.

You would be amazed on the small percentage that Amazon has to work on, now they would have to hire people to administrate and do the taxes etc.

I know from personal experience that it took my business at least 1 day a month, to fill out and process all the forms and stuff for the State of California's tax system.
Oh, but the state paid for that ?

No, the businesses have to absorb the overhead of doing that...one day salary, lights, insurance all the stuff and then the employee could not do productive stuff.
What a great system.

And the State of California is still broke, bankrupt , although not admitting that.

I know that it is not going to effect everyone but, it will effect enough people. If Amazon did collect they would simply pass on the costs to the consumer. Less people could afford purchases, and it would be then counter productive, less sales, less jobs, less everything.

So, I guess I will transfer my account to Mexico, we already have a few bank accounts, credit cards on our Mexican accounts, so my big fat commission check can still arrive...with it I will be able to get a cup of coffee, now and then.....more often, ....then.

But that's my opinion........

Next, A fellow blogger, Calypso had an interest in that a pickup truck license fee and tax is lower than a car....

We will come to that subject in our next chapter......

"The Taxman Cometh"

5 comments:

Calypso said...

Tancho - I read about the CA tax nab this morning - and about Amazon's response relative to CA associates. And here you are. CA is a strange land (I was born there so....).

Pretty sick of the taxes - most are we think.

Look forward to your truck vs. car commentary.

Tancho said...

Yeah me too! I wouldn't mind the taxes even at the rate the are presently, but every time we are in California, looking at the waste and mismanagement, like 5 pickup trucks, 7 people at a job site where one truck and 2 or 3 people would suffice, makes me change my mind. But, they cut police and fire services, as a lesson to teach the public a lesson. They refuse to cut waste and run the state like a business, instead they run it like a benevolent association, handing out money to anyone who asks for it, and supporting dead weight.
Too bad, California was indeed a great state, not now. I can tell each time my tires hit the roads as we leave Arizona or Oregon.

Jerry L said...

I'm with you Tancho, you would not believe the waste of our local government here in Florida. Seems that the public workers are entitled to a job no matter if there is little work or not sufficient tax revenue to support them.
I can't keep the doors open in my business running it like they run the city.

Steve Cotton said...

On our trip down from Oregon, the worst part of the trip was driving on California's highways. The Mexican highways are far superior. But, I never tire of hearing about taxes. Especially, why i should buy a pickup. Can I get one with a gun rack?

Tancho said...

Hey Steve I thought Oregon was a blue state? You a pickup and gun rack....My Man!
One funny thing when people ask about Mexico besides the fact that there are killings every 3 seconds, is that the roads and infrastructure are bad.
I always laugh and tell them that I would take Mexican roads any day over California roads. They then concede that indeed California roads are crap.
In Mexico they are always working adding overpasses, paving stretches of roads and building new bridges, unlike NOB where nothing new has been done for years.