Missouri Sales Tax and Amazon Associates and Me

Last week I received a fun little notice from Amazon.com.  It reads:

Greetings from the Amazon Associates Program.

We are writing from the Amazon Associates Program to notify you that your Associates account will be closed and your Amazon Services LLC Associates Program Operating Agreement will be terminated effective August 27, 2013. This is a direct result of the unconstitutional Missouri state tax collection legislation passed by the state legislature and signed by Governor Nixon on July 5, 2013, with an effective date of August 28, 2013. As a result, we will no longer pay any advertising fees for customers referred to an Amazon Site after August 27 nor will we accept new applications for the Associates Program from Missouri residents.

Please be assured that all qualifying advertising fees earned prior to August 28, 2013 will be processed and paid in full in accordance with your regular advertising fee schedule. Based on your account closure date of August 27, 2013, any final payments will be paid by October 31, 2013.

While we oppose this unconstitutional state legislation, we strongly support the federal Marketplace Fairness Act now pending before Congress. Congressional legislation is the only way to create a simplified, constitutional framework to resolve interstate sales tax issues and it would allow us to re-open our Associates program to Missouri residents.

We thank you for being part of the Amazon Associates Program, and look forward to re-opening our program when Congress passes the Marketplace Fairness Act.


Sincerely,

The Amazon Associates Team

In case you've never noticed, or never cared, all of my book links and some of the ads that I keep on my blog (and all the booklinks I use on my author website) have my Amazon Associate id embedded in them.  It's a feature that ought to mean nothing to the few people who click on those links, but that adds up to a few cents here and there in my pocket.  Up until next week, if you click on one of my links and actually buy something, then Amazon pays me a small referral fee--a percentage of around 4%-7% (depending on what the link is and how many folks have bought stuff with my links recently)

It's not a lot. I'm not a high-traffic site.  I just don't get that many clicks or purchases.  But it's not nothing. 

So here's the deal as far as I understand it (keep in mind, I'm not a lawyer or tax expert or anything similar):  because I'm a resident of Missouri, if Amazon were to continue paying me advertising revenue on those clicks, then they would have to collect Missouri sales tax on all the items that get sold as a result of those clicks.  They don't want to do that.  Therefore they are yanking my Amazon Associates account (along with all the rest of Missouri resident accounts) and not allowing any other Show-Me's the opportunity to make a few bucks by referring folks to their site.

Joy.

I'm not really sure what to think. I'm not really mad at Amazon--they are clearly making a decision that is best for their business going forward.  I'm not entirely sure I understand all the ins and outs of sales tax calculations. I'm definitely not against sales taxes, so I'm not sure I'm mad at Missouri.  I live here and benefit from the services that all that tax money buys.

I am peeved that Missouri was already taxing my Amazon Associated referrals as income.  But since that wasn't enough, they also want to collect sales tax from Amazon because they see me as a physical presence where Amazon is doing business.  Or I was adding to their "nexus" helping bolster their bottom line.  I suppose in a very tiny way, I was helping bolster Amazon's bottom line. But moreso, I think I was addinag to my own bottom line, and helping to promote individual items that Amazon sells--aka books.  And I've long been peeved at the stupidly complex layers of sales taxes that states, municipalities, towns, taxing districts, etc apply.  Sheesh, come up with a singular number and go with it, people.  You shouldn't need degrees in math and law to understand a sales receipt.

Now the fun starts.  I'm pretty sure that my e-book of Call the Rain has a link to The Paris Affair (note how I'm not including links, LOL).  And my website and blogs are littered with my associates ID.  And Facebook. And who knows where else I've managed to post links.  I assume they'll still work with the associates account going away, but I have a few hours of cleanup to do.

Cliches and What I Think When I Hear Them

"It will be a cake walk"

A coworker told me this recently about a task he was trying to complete. I, being the smarty pants that I am, proceeded to laugh at his choice of phrases. He meant to say that the task would be easy. I mean, cake walks are easy. The few that I've done at church and school fairs are basically a glorified musical chairs where the winner gets a baked good (frequently a cake). The problem is, you don't always win.

"A good moral compass"

This is the phrase of the year, what with the election and all. But did you know that a compass does not point "true" north, to the one-and-only X on the ground that the world has decided is (0,0), aka the North Pole?  Nope. A compass points to the Magnetic North Pole which is a spot somewhere up in the arctic circle where the earth's magnetic field points down. Magnetic North is not True North. And what's even better, Magnetic North moves over time (the difference between True North and Magnetic North is called Magnetic Variance, and it changes significantly from year to year).  Maybe politicians aren't exaggerating when they use the word "moral compass". Because some of them have morals that drift.

"Press the flesh"

While I'm on politics and politicians...I am thankful this silly phrase is not as widely used at the moment. Very. Thankful. Because it always sounds vaguely dirty, and frankly, I don't want most politicians anywhere near my flesh.

"Put on your big girl panties"


It wasn't until I started potty training my daughter that I figured out that this phrase was NOT related to jokes about "granny panties". Seriously. And even then, it made me wonder. See, my daughter was one of those children who, when so inclined, would just wet her way through whatever she was wearing--big girl panties, plastic pants, diaper, whatever. I still think that people use this phrase wrong. Women talk about putting on their own big girl panties in order to face some challenge the way a knight would put on armor to protect themselves in battle, or perhaps take the armor off in order to trust in their own innate abilities. The problem is, the metaphorical wearer of the metaphorical big girl panties is not the one in this scenario who requires faith and trust...its the owner of the upholstery on which she sits.

"Pound the table"

People think this means to strongly support an idea. I dunno. I always get the image of a toddler throwing a tantrum. Or some kind of medieval guy with turkey leg grease dripping down his huge bushy beard, who has just slammed down his goblet of glug in anger and is now motioning for his beefcake of a bodyguard to literally shoot the messenger  (or else press his flesh into a squishy mess?)

"Put it to bed"

As in, lets finish up this task or settle this conflict for good. But when you put a kid to bed, you expect them to wake up the next morning, revived. Right???

"As you sow, so shall you reap"

Except during a drought.  In that case, you better irrigate.

"Walking on eggshells"

My beef (hah! cow vs chicken joke) with this one is that people are always "walking on eggshells around " somebody. I don't get it. Wouldn't it hurt my feet if I walk on eggshells? If that somebody is uber-sensitive, and I'm either making crunching noises or else hopping from bare foot to bare foot and crying out in pain, wouldn't that make the situation worse?

"Two wrongs don't make a right"

But three lefts do... (or just make a legal U-turn, as my GPS is always demanding)

"A piece of cake"

This is kind of like that first one, only it makes me hungrier. Cakes aren't easy. Even cake mixes frequently go awry. And then there are the fillings. And the frosting. And the decorating. And have you ever had the pleasure of cutting a large wedding cake? There are diagrams, people. Is cake easy to digest? if you don't have gall bladder problems. And I suppose it doesn't take much chewing. But its hard to stop at just one piece. And now I'm craving chocolate, darnit.

Official Business

There is a lot of business to this writing business. This week's new thing: a business license. I was informed by my local city treasurer that I am required to pay for a business license and apply for a home business occupancy permit. It made me grumpy.

I'm not averse to paying taxes that I owe or to following rules. So in that spirit I have dutifully filled out paperwork and enclosed a check. I'm not entirely sure what this license is going to buy me--I don't exactly have a steady stream of clientele visiting my office (except the fictional people in my head, but they don't need parking spaces or bother the neighbors. Usually.). I won't have any undue number of packages being delivered or picked up. No crazy additions to the house.

Heck, when I was asked to specify how many square feet of my house I intended to use for the business, I almost answered "2" (one for the laptop, one for the netbook...some nights its just more comfortable to write from the couch than the desk). Instead, I played nice and estimated the square footage of my office at an overly generous 150 (its probably closer to 120).  I didn't even claim my home office on my taxes because the IRS has a lot of stringent rules about it having to be purely business and never personal, and how on earth do I explain that to the cats who like to nap in my chair? (and the printer gets used by the entire household even though it resides in my office).

Amusingly, in this town, "professional engineers" are exempt from the business license requirement (as are priests, teachers, and auctioneers. Why auctioneers and not writers?). As I am an engineer by day, I could have pleaded exemption, but I was kind afraid that the all-knowing city would google me and decide that engineers don't generally include hot steam-room sex scenes in their technical documentation. Though that might encourage end users to actually read online help.

Writers: be aware of local ordinances. If you open a post office box (which I did), or if you claim business expenses on your taxes (which I also did), then some nice local official may decide that you are, indeed, a business and request to know the names of your employees (I judiciously decided against mentioning the cats, the kids, my current hero/heroine, or my husband-aka-Director-of-Research-slash-Facilties-Manager).

For next year, I am seriously considering re-locating the family printer and putting the furballs on my payroll. If I have to pay for a license to play make-believe in my own private library, I may as well get a tax break for my trouble.

The Business of Writing

Learning to run a writing business is fun in a totally geeky sort of way. Since getting The Call last September, I've dealt with contracts, promotion, taxes, accounting, graphic design, web design, networking....and a little writing also. Each new challenge is scary. Fun-scary. And I have no idea whether I'm doing anything right.

This is the second year that I have claimed writing expenses on our tax return, with no income to go with it :) My first royalty check from The Paris Affair is coming sometime later this winter or early spring. So, I got a nice little warning from TurboTax (our accountant of choice until taxes get too complicated) saying that our audit risk is high. Oops :)

One of my resolutions for this year is to be better organized about tracking income and expenses, so I bought a copy of Peachtree Accounting software. Before you jump on the bandwagon, I will warn you: for my purposes, so far I think it's like hiring a master carpenter to hang some pictures on the wall. Totally overkill as a spreadsheet would be sufficient. But, I found a 2010 version for under $5 on clearance, so the worst I've done is waste my time. And it has a ton of online help that walks you through accounting principles, so I think I"m actually getting a bit of an education. Not bad for the money :)

On the promotion front, I've been trying a variety of approaches while trying to stay in line with my projected income (aka: promoting on the cheap).  I've done a handful of blogs (here, on the Soul Mate Authors group, and a couple of guest blogs elsewhere). I've given away a couple of copies of my book. (I have a giveaway running this week over on the SMP Authors site). I've tried to be on twitter and facebook, but my playtime there has been limited by the day job (where I've been working longer hours than normal) and the night job (where my munchkins deserve better than to see me over the top of my phone or laptop screen).

Also for promotion, I am playing with online ads.  My web hosting service had a bunch of ad credits that I could use, so I've been playing with Facebook and Google ads. I might have Yahoo credit I could claim as well.  It's a bit difficult to see how useful the advertising really is. Authors get a small amount of visibility into Amazon rankings of their books, and my publisher can share stats if I ask. But though I am attempting a few tricks to track which clicks result in sales, I don't know if the ads are helping much. So far, I would bet that if I were paying the ad money out of my own pocket instead of a free promotional credit, that I would probably spend more than I am earning from it. I am treating this as on-the-job-training :)

For online ads, you can either use ugly-looking text-only ads, or come up with fancy-looking graphics. Hiring a graphic designer's not in the budget (though I know a couple of them who would be awesome), so I'm polishing up my Photoshop skills.  And contemplating making Romance Trading Cards.  A lot of authors I know also print bookmarks, and though I'd love to do that (I can never get enough bookmarks), they seem like a strange kind of promo item for a digital release. I might do them anyway, as time permits (maybe with a QR code with the digital buy link?) Hmmm...

The only bad part about all this is that I'm not spending a lot of time writing. My "season" is coming up, though. I typically pump out  a lot of words in November, and then again during Lent. No religious association here, but for some reason the mid Feb-mid April timeframe has worked well for me to really get writing. Late spring and summer have been good times for me to revise.