Virginia Internet Marketers Ask Gov. Bob McDonnell To Keep His Word – Veto Bill 660 – The Advertising Tax Bill

Recently the Virginia Senate has proposed Bill 660. Effectively, the same advertising tax that was passed and caused significant damage to the small entrepreneurial internet marketing businesses in those states and cost small business jobs in the process.

States have started looking at these bills as a way to make money for their states in times of economic and budgetary turmoil. In California, arguably the state with the most financial troubles, Governor Schwarzenegger understood the effect that this bill would have on the entrepreneurs and jobs in his state and vetoed the bill.

Last night Governor Bob McDonnell delivered the GOP response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address. The full video of his response is below, but I wanted to call attention to some of his words in that response that clearly shows that he must follow Governor Schwarzenegger’s example and veto Bill 660, if it makes it to his desk. He said the following:

“Here in Virginia we face our highest unemployment rate in 25 years, and bringing new jobs and more opportunities to our citizens is the top priority of my administration. Good government policies should spur economic growth and strengthen the private sectors ability to create new jobs.”

And then Governor McDonnell followed that with the following at 1:49 in the video below and aired throughout most of the morning news broadcasts this morning:

“We must enact policies that promote entrepreneurship and innovation so America can better compete with the world. What government should not do is pile on more taxation, regulation, and litigation that kills jobs and hurt the middle class.”

Virginia Senate Bill 660 is a policy that will discourage entrepreneurship in Virginia. If enacted, the innovative entrepreneurs in the state will be dropped by the same merchants that the state hopes to obtain taxes from and the potential tax gains will be more than offset by the loss of revenue from these entrepreneurial businesses and the employees they are forced to fire.

There are many Internet marketing and advertising companies in Virgina that earn their living through Internet advertising. They do not sell merchant products, nor do they even know who their customers are. These businesses earn revenue through advertising for out-of-state merchants. Upwards of 90% or more of their revenue comes from out-of-state merchants. Large advertisers like Overstock and Amazon have already put Virginia affiliates on notice, that if this bill progresses they will stop working with these entrepreneurial companies in Virginia, like they have in EVERY state that this Internet advertising tax has been proposed. Those large advertisers are just the tip of the iceberg, many merchants will stop working with these entrepreneurial companies in Virginia, because we have seen it happen in New York and every other state where this advertising tax has been passed.

Please Governor McDonnell, we hope that you will help us ensure that this bill never reaches your desk, but if it does, please veto it. Don’t allow Virginia to enact a policy that squashes entrepreneurship and innovation in your state by piling on more taxation that will kill jobs and hurt the middle class of Virginia.

---

Governor McDonnell’s GOP Response to Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address Jan 27th, 2010: