New York Wants To Tax Internet Downloads 485
An anonymous reader writes "NY is considering taxing 'video and music' downloads to offset a burgeoning budget deficit." How long before we all have meters on our routers? This version is just a 4% tax on movies and songs downloaded from services like iTunes, but I'm sure if they could figure out a bit tax, they would.
porn tax (Score:5, Interesting)
TFA says that this will include a tax on porn, but not all of the lawmakers are on-board with the idea of taxing porn. Apparently taxing "legitimate" movies and music is fine, but a porn tax is bad.
Things that make you go hmmmm....
Interesting. (Score:4, Interesting)
If more boxes are going to the shop to be cleaned, that means those shops would be hiring more cleaning techs. At least in theory.
Not to mention the sales tax on the cleaning service.
So, all in all, this just MIGHT help their local economy.
No shit, sherlock. (Score:3, Interesting)
This 4% rate is exactly identical to the state sales tax rate for everything else in New York. Hell, they're being ridiculously nice -- it's half what you'd actually pay in most cities (which add their own rate, usually in the vicinity of 3-5%, on top of the state rate).
The fact that downloads don't get taxed in some states is a bizarre anomaly, and has no logical basis. CDs and DVDs are not exempt from sales tax, exempting their online counterparts is wildly inconsistent. Argue all you want about the merits of taxes in general or sales taxes in particular, but there's nothing remarkable here. Just a state closing a silly loophole.
Re:How the states can get their sales taxes (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Old news is old (Score:5, Interesting)
Most online retailers hate New York because we have horrible taxes, I believe NewEgg stopped requiring users to pay the tax in NY which caused them some issues. This will only exacerbate the intertube hatred of NY
You wouldn't think that a state could tax interstate trade, but if NewEgg (which appears to operate out of California) really did experience "issues" then I have a solution to that. Nothing would get the attention of the state of New York quite like every out-of-state online retailer refusing to sell to any NY resident or to ship items to a NY address. When customers complain, refer them to the problems NewEgg experienced and encourage them to take it up with the NY state legislature. The point is to make this an utter failure. That's definitely in our interests because if NY does this successfully, you can count on other states following suit.
If this happened, I doubt it would have to happen more than once to put an end to this sort of BS. Just imagine the precedent it would set.
Re:I want to see a provision in the stimulus packa (Score:1, Interesting)
If California and New York got as many federal dollars back as they pay in federal taxes, they would have a surplus. They're not irresponsible, they just don't have enough money to pay their bills and the bills of everyone else, too.
It's true. Check out the numbers.
Re:Great for increasing piracy (Score:3, Interesting)
No tax on torrents? Cool! Bye Bye iTunes.
That might make torrents a lot more dangerous for NY residents. Now, instead of being the civil tort of copyright infringement, it could be criminal tax evasion. I'm definitely not a lawyer so this is just my unqualified opinion, but this is exactly the sort of thing I've come to expect from government.
It's about taxes. Logic is actively opposed. (Score:5, Interesting)
Think about it for a moment. We have enough processing power that we can tie taxes to specific projects at the fraction of a cent level.
Why not let the voters vote for projects AND the taxes to fund them? If they want another school, then they get a property tax increase of $3.15 on all property in area X.
If they want to fill in the pot holes on 1st Avenue then they increase the sales tax by 0.013%. And when the project is finished, the tax is repealed.
Let the people see EXACTLY what they're spending the money on.
If someone runs for office claiming to want to "cut taxes" then let them specify EXACTLY what projects will be cut and the people can see how much they'll be saving.
Re:Interesting. (Score:4, Interesting)
So, all in all, this just MIGHT help their local economy.
Helping local economies is about finding efficiencies and creating value where there wasn't previously. If cleaning people's computers ultimately saved them more time than the cost offset, then cleaning people's machines would help the local economy. My suspicion is that it would ultimately just be a drain... a tax on the uneducated that pays out to Best Buy.
Hey, Atlas... (Score:3, Interesting)
Nothing would get the attention of the state of New York quite like every out-of-state online retailer refusing to sell to any NY resident or to ship items to a NY address.
*shrug*
Re:Grrrr (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm sick of the attitude "we've got stuff to pay for and we need to figure out how to raise revenue to do it" regardless of how they choose to raise it. Here's a novel approach to government: we've got X dollars, how can we spend it to maximize the quality of life of our citizens? I don't get to randomly pull in more money from secondary sources if I decide I want a bigger TV this year, so why should the government?
That's easy. There's this common misconception that politicians don't understand things like balanced budgets. They do. They're power-hungry liars but otherwise they are not stupid. They know how to play this game and they know that the average person is far too trusting and naive.
The reason why they don't carefully spend our money and otherwise respect and honor the citizens is because there is no political power to be had by doing that. That is the nature of political power. I wish we'd be more open and honest about that instead of beating the drum of patriotism and claiming that the expansion of government is "for the children" or "for our safety". A minimal government that is fiscally responsible and leaves the citizens alone as much as possible just doesn't satisfy the sort of fevered egos who are attracted to positions of political power.
As a side note, to get a better idea of the sort of manipulation that goes on, just research "problem, reaction, solution" which is also known as Hegel's "thesis, antithesis, synthesis". If you can notice that pattern just one time you'll start seeing it everywhere. See that and patterns like it and perhaps then you, too can experience the joy of predicting the outcome of political "debates" in the media (it's easy -- whichever prefabricated solution does the most to expand government is the one that will probably "win") for people who neither believe you nor question the high success rate of your predictions. There's just not a lot of understanding of the idea that our politicians have been going down the same path for quite some time and that they intend to travel further down that same path.
Re:Great for increasing piracy (Score:3, Interesting)
If that were true they'd get all thieves on tax evasion, and as far as I know, they've never ever charged one with tax evasion for not paying the tax on a product they stole.
What about on-demand stuff? (Score:3, Interesting)
The really neat question will be, IMO, things like the on-demand/live streaming service from places like Netflix and Comcast. I believe that they have physical infrastructure in NY, so that would mean they are impacted.
The movies and TV shows that they stream DO have a value, even if that value is calculated as a fraction of the monthly subscription one pays. How much of that monthly subscription should be the basis for the tax that NY wants to collect?
TFA is silent on this point, but I'm curious how they'd be able to implement something like that via legislation..
Re:No shit, sherlock. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The upside (Score:3, Interesting)
The downside would be that you actually pay for those 5MB webpages that would be 300k without the annoying advertisements everywhere.
Re:It's about taxes. Logic is actively opposed. (Score:4, Interesting)
They repealed the luxury tax on telephones a few years ago. It was enacted to pay for the Spanish-American war. So they do repeal them, but sometimes it takes 107 years. http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2005/06/5056.ars [arstechnica.com]
Re:Old news is old (Score:2, Interesting)
Not only that but, 23 years ago (may still be the case) some (or maybe all) California counties/cities had a similar thing for sales tax differences in other California counties/cities.
1) You live in county X.
2) You buy a car in county Y.
3) After a while, you get a bill from county X for the difference between the sales tax in your county and the lower sales tax in county Y where you bought the car.
Yes, this happened to me.
I sent them the bill back stating "There is no way I am paying this bill. Have a nice day!" I never heard from them again.
Of course, some uppity county official could have dragged me into court, but it never happened, no lien was ever filed, etc.
It wasn't a lot of money. And, I didn't even go to this other county to buy the car because of the sales tax difference. I bought it in county Y because they had a ton more dealerships there with a much larger selection compared to the county I lived in. Yeah, the prices were better also.