UK Government to Tax Linux?

An anonymous reader writes "The UK government is looking at introducing a tax aimed at software published under GNU GPL. It claims that because programmers do it for free, it is losing out on income tax and that commercial software companies (read Microsoft) are at a disadvantage. Some pressure group has already put up a website with more details and news site Techworld have got a quote from a Treasury spokesman saying that they're only considering it."

Comments

Re:Even a 100% tax is ok

[bheer]

I know this is a joke, but in a way the UK (any .gov, really) bills open source already. Folk who install/deploy/sell Linux solutions pay Value Added Tax on the services they render. The only reason open source volunteers are -- and will remain -- exempt is that they don't enter into transactions with the organizations they're volunteering code to. You can't tax volunteer activity.

Re:Very cute.

[Draoi]

It looks like they bought the Google mail story hook, line and sinker.

Actually, it's true

And hey look, Slashdot got a mention;

"It's going to go down in history as one of the biggest pranks ever pulled," wrote one message poster at Slashdot.org, which bills itself as a news provider for nerds.

Re:Even a 100% tax is ok

[Gadzinka]

No, it isn't.

There was an attempt in Poland to tax linux this way. The thinking behind it was that if it is a gift for a commercial entity, than said entity has to pay Donation and Inheritance tax for it. And the base for this tax wouldn't be the price paid (zero). As it is with all donations, the base for the purpose of taxation is normal market price. Polish Revenue Service wanted it to be price of MS Office for OOo and price of Win NT/2k for Linux system.

Now, this news we are writing about is April 1st, but the history with trying to tax Linux, Open Office etc in Poland was true. Luckily it failed, although Finance Ministry didn't issue official statement or act about it in order to not tie hands of some enterprising clerks in revenue service.

Unfortunatelly I cannot find anything about it in English. If you know Polish google for site:linuxnews.pl podatek

Robert