No Amazon State People - Could They Do This?

Restrictions as far as from Amazon itself?

I don't see anything wrong with that approach. The "Trust factor" would be my biggest concern!

As far as Amazon there's no way they could find out, unless you tell them.

Among several other wrenches would be taxes and direct violation of Amazon's TOS, as well as nexus state laws. The Amazon affiliate would be responsible for all income taxes (Federal and state if applicable.) In addition, the partner receiving a percentage will also be liable for any taxes on income received, and the state sales tax. It's not a good plan IMO without some competent specialist tax or incorporating advice.

Aside from the obvious "gotta trust the other person" situation?

How about aside from circumventing the laws of a State in which a person lives.

I'm not sure aiding and abetting folks to disregard/circumvent laws passed by the States they reside in is a wise move. In fact, all it would take is a law making that a felony to get and keep a lot of those folks in hot water.

If you think "it's not nice to fool Mother Nature", just see what happens when you get caught fooling Big Brother.

~Bill

How about the two of them form a company - which is based wherever affiliates are allowed.

Then the company does whatever it likes - with the two people being shareholders/employers.

Of course the specifics will depend on the place that the company is formed in.

Hope that helps

OR you could just ask amazon.

This is sort of like those legal help threads where trademarks were used in their URL. It is totally irrelevant what answers you get her Tiff, Amazon will do whatever they want even if larry, curly and moe tell you different and expand their reasoning with "with out any doubt Amazon will not have any problem with this..."

Then amazon cancels the accounts even after you asure people on your list or in your product that this wont happen. It's the google SEO advice situation here, you have no control over 3rd party services things change without a moments notice.

Honestly, giving advice to get around situations like this is a bad idea. At best you could experience a black eye to your reputation at worst possible legal problems.

Things like this to me are similar to advice about how to evade taxes and setting up numbered accounts in other countries to "protect" assets.

My take on it anyway.

- T

I posted about this very thing a few weeks back. For people based in the US, there is nothing wrong or illegal about setting up a legitimate business in any state of their choosing. Here is a copy of the posting.
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"There's nothing shady about a corporation existing in state separate from its owners. Happens all the time. Where people run into problems is when they haven't created a separate entity for their business, they start co-mingling funds and accounts, or their reasons for setting up the business were fraudulent.

I believe it to be imperative that any serious business owner incorporate or create an LLC and if you run a legitimate business it can be domiciled in any state you wish. This should be done whether Amazon is nipping at your profits or not.

Any state you incorporate in will require that you have a registered agent domiciled in the state. This can be accomplished by maintaining a mailbox in the state (not a PO BOX) this needs to be a physical address. The easiest thing to do is to get UPS Store mailbox. Make sure your name and the corporation name are on it. There are other companies that do this and almost all of them allow you to handle the process via mail. I mentioned UPS store because it's the most popular.

I advise against the cheaper route of using a friend's address, it's rather unprofessional to involve friends in business matters for no other purpose than to save a few bucks.

You should already have a business bank account but if you don't get one. With the popularity of internet banking (think ALLY) where the bank account is set up is not nearly as important as long as they operate in the state where your business is registered.

If you don't have an employer identification number - get one ( once again if you're serious about running your business this should already be taken care of)

You also want to make sure that your Amazon account lists your business and not you personally. Again, I advise this for all of your business affiliations.

If you're not comfortable setting up your business yourself, there are tons of companies that will handle it for a reasonable fee. The important thing is it's done correctly, completely and legally. The devil is definitely in the details.

As stated above I did.

I'm asking Warriors about a myriad of issues with this scenario - aside from the trust factor. IE: Some people have implied it's an ethics issue. I'd love to hear WHY - not just a simple statement that it's not above the board.

Informing and edu-ma-cating myself