Stephanie Lichtenstein

I put the plan of action into action this weekend. I met with my local state representative Julio Robaina. He was all ears and very helpful. The main things I put together for the big meeting a tentative agenda with statistics. The first thing I showed were bullet points of why the advertising tax is harmful for my State. Then I had several people in the office sign a letter of oposition. I contacted networks to get Statistics specific to my State.

I want to thank ShareASale and LinkShare for quickly giving me information about the State of Florida. This made my meeting more real to the representative because he knew how badly this could affect us. One of my favourite letters was put together by LinkShare. It shows real life examples of advertisers, their business stories, and how it would affect their families. Lastly, I attached the letter from Amazon to Hawaii explaining that if the tax was passed they would drop all their Hawaii advertisers which clearly shows the impact of the tax.

Below was my tentative plan of action for the meeting. I will list what I have so far and add in information on what I really ended up taking to my meeting. All of these resources can be used for emails and meetings with your local state representatives.

1. State List
Get together with others from your State to fight the advertising tax. More people have added themselves to the state list within the Facebook Group.

2. Government and Media Contact List
I still need help finding the best directory to get emails. If you google local state representative + Your State make sure the website says .GOV at the end. That will give you the directory with the phone numbers and representative you need to contact. You can also find a list of all representatives here and then input your zip code. The Twitter directory for local state representatives is here.

3. Statistics, Material, Resources
In my meeting I used statistics provided for my state by Brian Littleton from ShareASale, you can contact him to request your state info at: brian@shareasale.com. The map that represents all the advertisers in my state was provided to me by Mark Kirschner from LinkShare, you can contact him to request your state map at: mkirschner@linkshare.com. That is how I got my state statistics. From there I used the LinkShare letter showing real businesses and advertisers being affected which is here. The letter from Amazon stating they would remove their Hawaii advertisers if the tax is passed, this is powerful and I would suggest sharing it with your representative.

4. Education
Here is a quick drill on learning what the advertising tax means. Shawn Collins put an explanation together so please watch this 2 minute clip to understand the tax better before telling others about it. Also please keep in mind to use the word advertiser instead of affiliate so that others can relate to it better.

My meeting with the local state representative went well. My representative Julio Robaina made it clear that our state is against adding any taxes because that would only harm businesses. Emphasize that this kind of tax would only lengthen the unemployment line. Helping small businesses stay open is crucial right now and anyone can understand how important this is. My meeting was a success and there will be others in place. Just because things are okay now doesn’t mean that the fight is over. This will probably show up in the November session on the bill. We need to be proactive so that it does not pass. Thank you for all your help and please let me know if you need anything in your own fight against the advertising tax. You are not alone.

On the good news side the tax has not been passed in Virginia and Maryland. A big thank you to the networks they have the statistics that can prove a point, because at the end of the day people will react to numbers and whatever is the most real to them. Also Melanie Seery officially started the Affiliate Voice organization to fight the advertising tax which is awesome. She has always been a huge advocate since this all began with the state of New York. The PMA is another organization that has stepped up today they blogged about all the states and the most recent news on each. Everyone has gotten together and put their differences aside because they can see the bigger picture and I am proud of that.

On a side note, Florida has not officially added any bill but that doesn’t stop this from being important. I have reached out for all this information because being proactive is the key. Do not freak out when it hits your state. Be prepared and give your representatives a heads up. It has helped me be a few steps ahead. Why? Well after my meeting with the state representative he has put me in contact with other representatives as well as Rep.  Ellyn Setnor  Bogdanoff who would deal with passing the tax; I have heard she is against new taxation but I still wanted to make her aware of what could come up in November Session. I already contacted her and let her know the potential harm this could do to our state. Act now, don’t wait until it’s too late.