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Originally Posted by snipenekkid
I don't see how a site owner could be liable for the tax on a sale they did not conduct though. Amazon is the retailer and the affiliate is simply doing nothing more than hawking the Amazon site and content no more than a road sign.
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They're also collecting payments on the purchase though.
The issue isn't settled, but I suspect it has a lot more to do with actual laws as written than our intuitions.
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Originally Posted by snipenekkid
Add to it that the fact of the Agency 5 there is zero competition...
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Uh, no.
Agency pricing does remove two specific aspects of competition -- price and availability.
However, this still leaves dozens of other ways for retailers to compete with one another. Retailers are still competing on: ebook reader and app quality; customer service; branding and advertising; credit options; international offerings; and, as this instance shows, affiliate services.
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Originally Posted by snipenekkid
I don't see how an affiliate will benefit other than the slim chance they are classified a retail presence which then comes down to does the location of the person or the location of the servers hosting the site constitute the determination of retail presence.
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Uh, no. Again. Sorry.
In this case, in theory the affiliate benefits because B&N is going to accept the headache of making sure the sales taxes are taken care of, and that if there is a problem B&N offers to take care of it. These kinds of issues could be a big headache for a one-person blog who picks up an extra $25 a month from affiliate book sales.
Separately, sales tax is determined by the physical location of the purchaser, not the seller. If I live in California (8.25% sales tax) and I purchase something online from a seller in Alabama (4% sales tax), the seller needs to collect the 8.25% sales tax and pay it to California.
So it doesn't matter where the affiliate is located. The real question is whether they hold some tax liabilities, and B&N is telling the affiliates "go with us and you won't have to worry either way."
As such B&N's offer is a benefit -- to the extent that the potential affiliate believes B&N will do what it says.