I wonder if this is doing more harm than good...

Some people want to do these types of gigs for extra income, but now if your an employee then probably companies will want you to be on a schedule and a minimum number of hours.

I forget where but seen a story where someone was told by one of their clients that they were letting them go because of this new law. Happened to be their biggest client too, but they were doing remote work and lived in California...

So now I guess some companies might want to let go of people from California and contract with residents of Texas or any other state instead.

Kinda reminds me of when states started changing their sales tax nexus laws, I was doing affiliate marketing but didn't have any success as still starting out.

But my state changed their law to try to collect from remote sellers and changed it to count affiliate sales too. So I got a notice kicking me out of the program on a short notice... If I had built up landing pages and traffic, I'd be left holding the bag... or adjust them to aim at another company but would have been a huge setback.

You could go from making a comfy living online to making zero. I know gurus tell people to build up multiple streams of income, but in this case, all companies could do the same. Look at affiliate sales from the state, look at compliance costs... If making enough sales to justify then comply or just ban residents of the said state from the program and move on. So by trying to tax companies, they could have ended up hurting their residents instead. So by trying to get sales tax, they ended up with neither, losing out on both sales tax along with the income tax on the commissions since companies just decided to pull out completely from letting those residents be affiliates, so they were longer eligible to earned any commissions.

"We regret to inform you that Nexus state tax regulations in Ohio were just passed July 1st of this year. Unfortunately, we are unable to work with any Ohio based affiliates, due to the Nexus Tax Laws currently under enforcement in the state."

This was back in 2015. I think more than a few states changed their laws on this, I believe they are referred to as a cookie nexus. and some programs have a minimum threshold to cash out too. So I guess they can kick you out and keep your money... Lucky I didn't have any in my account as was recently dabbling in this area.

So kinda sad that you could lose out on income just because of the state you are domiciled in. Wouldn't surprise me if other companies outside of California is going to end contracts with people just because they live in California. Kinda feels like discrimination in a way.

However maybe setting up a corporation instead of being a sole proprietorship that could be a workaround. Don't deal with California individuals, deal with California companies instead even if it's just only a company size of 1. So ride sharing apps could require drivers to set up an LLC and pay that instead of paying them directly maybe. But then California has high taxes and franchise fees already, so maybe it's just not worth it. There's already a mass exodus from California, so wouldn't surprise me if this makes even more people question if they should leave the state also. Move somewhere cheaper and get to keep your clients too if you are a freelancer.