Lawmakers eying taxation on digital downloads
By Darren Murph 
posted April 17th 2008 5:08AM
posted April 17th 2008 5:08AM
[Image courtesy of Izzy]
posted April 17th 2008 5:08AM
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when does sperm tax come in?
Well, I was going to reply with the following:
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Ummmm.... I wish Engadget had a private messaging function for situations like this, but as it doesn't, I'll have to respond publically:
Well, there is a sperm tax. You just haven't been sent the IRS form since, well, you don't produce.
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But then I thought better of it. I'm going to go ahead and rank myself low for even having such a thought.
is that like child support? lol
Because I already pay taxes for my ISP (at least, my neighbor does), would taxing a digital download not be considered double taxation? Or are they considering "access to 1's and 0's" and "the 1's and 0's themselves" as seperate products?
Then again, I consider paying both an income tax and a sales tax to be double taxation, but there aren't many politicians who agree.
I don't know about you state, but here in Florida, land of sharks, lightning and a demonic mouse, if you receive _anything_ tangible from the seller, whether it be CD, manual, etc, that makes the entire sale taxable. I believe that also applies if a tech support stepped foot on your property (errrrr, your rental; since we are on tirade about taxes, might as well extend it to property taxes :-).
Of course not; why would it? One is a service being provided by one company, and one is a product being provided by another.
Chicksta:
Not for sure I understand your reply... was that to me or the original poster?
OP.
Chicksta:
I'm not for sure who OP is, and I could not find a definition for it as an acronym on Google. But I think you might be replying to Reich. In which case, he most likely lives in a tangible/intangible state, like I do, which makes his argument a little more valid.
I know in my state (FL), I could deliver a hundred dollar piece of software over the web to another resident of Florida, and as long as I do not ship the purchaser anything "tangible" like a printed manual, BU disc or the likesuch, there is no sales tax involved (~.08).
AND THAT IS WHY WE PIRATE. I will continue to download and not pay for crap.
I have to join the large number of people who say that an "iTunes Tax" will encourage piracy.
Frankly, its encouraging me to hit the "Check Updates" button on Peerguardian2 more often ;)
taping up shattered budgets
What? The various municipalities and states have budget shortfalls because they have been massively increasing their budgets. The budgets aren't shattered they're overblown.
What most people don't understand is they are already taxed around 53% if you live in the United States. This is your income tax, sales taxes, etc. that a lot of people don't really pay much attention to.
My suggestion, Ron Paul. Don't vote Democrat, and don't vote Republican. All I can say is america is in need of a Reformat, and Ron Paul can provide us with the Boot Disk we need to start off with a fresh install.
The major reason for taxes is to pay government employs and to pays debts, oh and one of the major things donate billions of dollars to countries that don't really pertain to the US. America can't even take care of their own people, but they sure can take care of everyone else in the world.
You want Free Health Care? There is no such thing, that is called a brand new Health Care Tax that will take more out of your paycheck that what you would by using the Employer Healthcare Provider. This isn't Hadron Collider Science.
Two words though. Reformat America.
Yeah good luck with that.
This is ALL the more reason not to vote for Hillary or Obama. Please people, for the sack of our hard earned money, DO NOT VOTE DEMOCRAT! Even if you don't like republicans look at what they stand for as far as taxes go. They wouldn't do this crap.
No offense, Jeremy, but would you happen to be a young republican? We haven't had a fiscally conservative repub in office since RR, h3ll, Clinton was better then the last two "republicans".
D@MN, now look what you made me do {at the thought of RR, tears stream down hypereric's face}
I.... I.... I've got to go now.
Hello general referendum now only if I can get 12% of my state to sign a petition to get it on the ballot! So we can effectively "peoples veto" this bill... WOO POLI 1 class three years ago! haha
Yes, I agree... but how do you maintain the outrage post April 15th?
The game is rigged. Employers take out the employees' taxes on a weekly basis, and, h3ll, some people even think their tax refund post April 15th is a gift from our benevolent overlords.
I file 941's quarterly... the employee's go slack-jawed when I tell them how much the deposits are. This in itself shows the 'rigged' nature of weekly deductions.
BeyondtheTech: the above was a reply to your comment.
Engadget: the reply button is screwy again. At first I thought it was just my blood pressure, frothing at the mouth rage against the machine attitude. So I popped a Xanax, took a breather as it kicked in, and then came back and made sure I hit the reply button to BeyondtheTech.
They're always hunting for new money. Speaking of hunting, lawmakers are something that rhyme with hunts...
This is a very bad idea. Getting people to purchase music is already hard enough, but by just adding a little bit of tax I believe it will increase the number of illegal downloads that is already sky high.
I'm not worried (sarcasm), I'll just use my $300 tax rebate to counter the cost of this nonsense.
I don't know about you guys but my iTunes purchases are already tagged with taxes anyway (if it's not coming from the state then where is it going?). At any rate, if a Democrat is elected president of the US (as I suspect, and hope, one is) then taxes are going to up anyway.
I guess I don't see what the big deal is at all.
First off I'm in one of the states that tax that stuff and as more and more join Streamline more and more are going to see it.
The second part is why shouldn't it be taxed? People seem to think that everything on the internet is automaticaly tax free for some reason when that just isn't the case. If I go to the store and buy the song, program, etc. I'm getting the exact same thing as if I download it (minus the shinny disc, which isn't really what you're paying for in the first place) so the flip side of the argument that everyone seems to be coming up with comes into play. You can't put the physical stores at a disadvantage just because of tax either.
"People seem to think that everything on the internet is automaticaly tax free for some reason when that just isn't the case. If I go to the store and buy the song, program, etc. I'm getting the exact same thing as if I download it (minus the shinny disc, which isn't really what you're paying for in the first place) so the flip side of the argument that everyone seems to be coming up with comes into play. You can't put the physical stores at a disadvantage just because of tax either."
Leaving aside the tangible/intangible aspect as it does not apply to every state, both of your arguments are flawed. The Constitution is quite clear about (paraphrasing from memory) 'not hindering the free flow of goods from state to state ... no tariffs imposed between states (etc)'. This has already been decided by the Supreme Court when mail/phone order companies got on the policitians' radar.
*This* is where people get the notion of tax-free... from the same people who phoned in orders to a company located in a different state two decades back, and those people got the notion from people who mailed in their orders to a company in a different state two or three decades before them, and those people got the notion from the Constitution.
"You can't put the physical stores at a disadvantage just because of tax either"
Those companies can setup a website and sell the wares all day long to people out of state, tax free (as long as the company is not incorporated in that other state). In the marketplace, you adapt or die. I'm sure buggy makers weren't thrilled when the Model T became a runaway success.
And if you're implying that the gubbermint should do this to "help"; well, the historical examples of major government intervention in the marketplace "to help" is just about 100% failure rate. I can only think of the "New Deal" as a success story, and even then only partially.
Let's bring back taxes on beards too while we're at it. Why do we even get paychecks? why not skip what's going to happen in 20 years, 100% income tax.
Well, after all the hidden taxes and what-not are calculated, 'We the People' are non-payed slaves from Jan 1st to 6 days from now (April 23).
Just think, all of us working more then a quarter of a year for [insert favorite gubbermint entity here].
Here is a link that might be helpful and warm the cockles of your heart even more by making it even more personal: http://www.mytaxfreedomday.com/
I already pay sales tax on downloads, and I know it's not just iTunes, Amazon and Steam do it too. But then, it might just be tax-happy Washington state at work.
Bloody 8.75% sales tax.
um... we already pay sales tax.
taxing on tangible products is illegal in CALIFORNIA
anyone know if it's for all sites or just itunes? i ♥ P2P
scary part is I was listening to the white stripes.
when things like this happen in the U.S, it makes me happy that I live in Australia. But then again we here down under already pay a lot more for itunes music than the US: U.S= 99c per song, Australia= $1.69 per song
Come on!, how are you really gonna tax my illegal downloads, sorry, I meant legal downloads, yea thats what I meant.