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European Union to Tax Commercial Downloads

Posted by timothy on from the see-also-freshmeat-and-savannah dept.

Jayman2 writes: "On a meeting this Tuesday the financial ministers of the European Union's member countries agreed to tax downloads from countries outside the EU. The purpose of the new rules is to close a loophole in European taxation on music and films downloaded directly over the net. In the future downloads from outside the EU will be taxed relative to the European country where the customer is located (i.e. a person from Luxemburg pays 15% sales tax on a download from the U.S., whereas a Danish person pays 25%). Companies from inside the EU pays relative to the country where it is located. The U.S. has launched a complaint about these new measures and is threatening to bring the case to the World Trade Organisation."

2 of 27 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Looks like time for by rm-r · · Score: 2, Informative

    The idea is no dumber than plenty coming out of the Whitehouse (under either recent president) regarding the Internet. Maybe if you knew a little about the EU you would appreciate that this is just somebody's idea and that it would have to go through the European parliement, the member parliments and all manner of subcommitees before it is enforced- and during this time it will be dropped when it is realised to be unenforcable, checks, measures, etc. are cool, things like the DMCA suggest the Europeans might be ahead here...

    Oh, and when you say the EU should build it's own Internet do you mean GEANT, The Fastest Backbone on Earth? :-)

    --

    J-aims
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    Yo, whatever happened to peas? Join T( H)GS
  2. Hypocracy Abounds by Sentry21 · · Score: 3, Informative

    The US and Canada have been at arms with each other about Canada's softwood lumber exports. The US says that the government is subsidizing the mills, that we are 'dumping' our lumber across the border, and so on, so they imposed a 19% countervailing duty on ALL softwood lumber imports from Canada - which, by the way, is causing the unemployment of thousands, just to raise the profits of American mills.

    Canada has taken this issue to the World Trade Organization - twice - and the courts have ruled in Canada's favour both times, and the US totally ignored the rulings and imposed the duties.

    Now the US might be hurt by people paying more for exports, and it wants to go to the WTO. Does anyone else see this as blatant hypocracy?

    --Dan