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Wisconsin Governor Proposing Tax On Downloads

Posted by samzenpus on from the click-and-pay dept.

Christopher Reimer writes "Ars Technica is reporting that the Wisconsin's governor is proposing a tax for downloads. From the article: 'Wisconsin's Democratic governor thinks it's not fair that tangible items get taxed while downloads, like music, ebooks, software, etc., go completely untaxed. So, he proposes to rectify the situation by having Wisconsin's 5% state sales tax apply to Internet downloads.'"

1 of 840 comments (clear)

  1. Stupid, yet Illegal. Brilliant! by Onimaru · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Okay, so this is obviously dumb, but I'll go one better. It's also probably unjustifiable and unconstitutional.

    The general justification put forth for sales tax is that it's a tax on doing business in the state and using the existing infrastructure of that state so to do. The internet doesn't really do that.

    Also, there's a good argument to be made that the Negative Commerce Clause prohibits this kind of action by a state or local government. In essence, Congress gets to regulate interstate commerce, not Wisconsin.

    --
    adam b.