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."

Comments

Hypocracy Abounds

[Sentry21]

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