Amazon.com on Friday filed a lawsuit against New York State in an effort to overturn a recently enacted law requiring online merchants to collect state sales taxes.
Though New York law requires its citizens to pay sales takes on purchases from companies outside the state, they rarely do. Also, mail-order merchants for decades have been exempt from collecting sales taxes from customers in states where they have no physical presence.
New York’s law, however, says affiliates-those who are paid a commission for sales on Amazon.com driven from their sites-located in the state constitute a sales force for Amazon in the state, and therefore, a physical presence.
In a complaint filed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, Amazon contends the law is overbroad, and that its affiliates are not agents, but rather sites on which Amazon places advertising.
The company is also arguing that New York’s law violates the equal protection clause of the constitution because it specifically took aim at Amazon.
