Slashdot Mirror
European Union to Tax Commercial Downloads
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."
The suggestion is to apply sales-tax to stuff you buy by downloading it from the net. If I order a DVD from the states, I pay sales-tax. (23% in Norway) This suggestion says that I should pay the same thing if I buy the versy same movie, but download it rather than getting it on DVD.
So anything that's free on the net would be unaffected. Oh well, this is slashdot I suppose, it's too much to ask that people actually read what is said before responding to it...
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
If I fly to the US and buy these goods I'm expected to pay VAT on my way back into the EU, this proposal just brings downlaods into line with that. No big deal really (well no more than taxes being levvied at all).
Good to see the editors not adding any hyperbole or saying that proposals were law or anything! This is still vapourlaw at the moment.
I wonder if p2p will be classed as tax evasion. I remember customs officials in Poland taxing Free Software imports by perceived value rather than actual cost. Turning up at Heathrow with a holdall full of Brand New US sourced cd's and saying "I was given them" might not quite work either!
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
So you could not, as you claim, get around the sales-tax by doing "free music, with the purchase of item X", because if you buy item X, regardless of what it is, then you pay sales-tax. Simple and straigthforward.
I'm not saying I agree with this proposal, I'm jsut saying that your objection only suceeds in showcasing your lack of understanding of the issue.
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
Yeah -- I really sympathize with that.
Not that I agree with sales/use/vat/duty taxes anyway, but that's beyind the scope of this rant. Why is it that whenever some sovereign nation decides to tax us (or worse, simply compete in the global market -- steel, lumber, etc.), our gov'ment gets it panties all in a wad, but when we tax and tarrif the hell out of everyone else, it's all fine and dandy?
Hypocritical scum...
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