Would you clasify affiliates as advertisers or middle-men?
 

By our tax laws our company has to issue invoices for every incoming payment. Vast majority of affiliate programs (sponsors) don't need these invoices so we just store them in our books as required by law.

Anyway in EU we have to charge VAT (Value Added Tax) on every invoice. But, if issued to foreigners we don't charge VAT. For that we have to state by what Article/Paragraph of the VAT tax law we are not charging it.

There are 2 different Paragraphs in our law, one for "advertisers" and the other for "middle-men".

They are both exempt from charging VAT to foreigners, so it kinda wouldn't matter which we state, yet I want to be precise in case we get audited and get some old fart bookworm auditor that thinks he's smarter than me.

What do you think? Are we (affiliates) Advertisers or Middle-men?

neither. they're independent commission only sales people.

oh no!

____

every advertiser is a sales person then. when it comes to internet all advertising effect can be measured precisely per advertiser. and once that is possible you can simply clasify advertisres as sales people? I am not selling shit to anyone, affiliate programs are.

so when there was pay-per-impression model that was advertising, when pay-per-click came, that was still afvertisning. Then finally after merchants figured out both advertising models are crap, the introduced pay-per-signup and revshare, or if you want to call them pay-per-effect.

Now all in a sudden advertiser is no longer an advertiser, but a sales person, just because an advertising model changed?

Asking a question on gfy is like asking a classroom of retards.

and what is your opinion?

What country is that, thats a pretty unusual law for the EU

Slovenia.

Ya I wish we had less strict laws like in some other EU members.

As far as I am able to tell service provided for affiliate programs (sponsors) is advertising based on a PBR (Payment By Results) model.

Internet is one of the rare mediums where performance of advertising campaigns can be completely measurable (where payments for advertising can be adjusted to results campaigns had) and is as such being used in affiliate programs where affiliates act as advertisers for the program.

Am I right?

Also the term sponsor comes from "sponsoring your website" where sponsors pay you for displaying their ads on your websites. They just pay for these ads based on results these ads bring. So what is this other than advertising then? Agree?

Cmon people, can we talk business here just for a minute?

I would classify affiliates as Advertisers

McSpike has made some good points

I consider myself an invester because I am putting my money & time in hopes of a return.

Clever monkey:)
I like you.

Advertisers!!

Don't they state on the law which is which?

And you are one of them... :D

you think law discusses/distinguishes types of advertising? you wish.

welcome to the club :drinkup

It depends on the affiliate in question. If they have the traffic, they're an advertiser. If they merely obtain the traffic from some third party and then send it to you, they're a middle man. For example, the Hun would be an advertiser, someone who submits galleries would be a middleman.

I didn't mean "middle-men" in terms of advertising, but "middle-men at selling paysite memberships".

Yet even if you look on things the way you presented it, that "middle-man" acts as an advertising agency, so his services performerd for the sponsor are advertising.

Also I have no idea what makes you think hun would be an advertiser while gallery submitter would be the middle-man? That gallery submitter just got listed somewhere and is now displaying sponsor ads on his gallery - he is advertising sponsor's paysites. Even if gallery submitter bought that gallery spot, he would be advertising sponsor's paysite and would get paid no more than any other affiliate, only his sum would be smaller because of the hun's cut. That is not being "middle-man at selling paysite memberships" but rather performing advertising activities same way as an advertising agency would do. So they are advertisers.

The gallery submitter is a middle-man because he can be removed the equation relatively easily. The gallery submitter stands between the traffic (tgp) and the money (paysite), hence middle-man.

That's just my personal opinion, not any sort of legal definition of middleman under the tax code of your country.

AFF classifies and defines them as middle-men, maybe that helps you.

I would call them independent contractors ?