Wednesday, October 27, 2010

NC's demands of Amazon violate first amendment

Another attempt by the politicians of North Carolina to get their grubby little paws on more taxes, this one ruled a violation of the first amendment.

Their previous attempts to squeeze more taxes out of their citizens destroyed the Amazon Affiliate program in the state of North Carolina, which ultimately hurts North Carolina citizens like me who were taking part.

The Affiliates program wasn't necessarily a cash cow for me as I think I earned about $15 after a couple years or so, but it's the principle. I'm sure other websites were harder hit than myself. See this LA Times editorial from April (that I don't really agree with) that provides some more details and links about the history of North Carolina going after Amazon and its customers to try to subsidize the state's out-of-control spending.

Based on the comments in the Volokh piece, it seems likely that North Carolina will take yet another crack at extracting as much money from North Carolina citizens as possible. Because the powers that be think it's much better to squeeze more money out of us rather than control their wasteful spending.

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