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Texas Senator Proposes Game Tax
Via 1up, an article at the Brownsville Herald detailing a proposed tax on videogames. From the article: "The McAllen Democrat said on Wednesday he plans to propose a 5 percent tax on videogames when he and other members of the Senate Finance Committee meet this weekend to discuss a series of tax bills. It would raise about $65 million every two years and be designated for new schools and building upgrades at poor school districts, he said. 'You have all these kids buying videogames, and sometimes they are good, some are bad and that's not my call,' Hinojosa said. 'But I think that we can generate (money) to put toward the schools they go to.'"
Texas gamers propose switching to mail-order, never buying video games from a brick and mortar store again
'Stop playing that game and finish your homework!' 'Wait! Dad! I'm... uh... helping... fund... the school! YEAH!' 'So that's what that new tax is. [laugh] Alright, kid. Go for it.'
Informatus Technologicus
Because $10000 per child per year isn't enough. Because dumping bucketloads of money on schools has such a tremendous track record of success. Do it for the children (who actually won't be getting the money because it'll go to higher salaries for people who already work at the schools).
I just love how our legislators feel that video games need to be treated differently than movies, books, music or any other form of entertainment. Any argument that can be made for taxing games is going to be equally valid to any other entertainment medium.
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
and how many millions will it cost to propose, consider, publish, and implement?
On one hand more money for poor schools is a good thing.
On the other video games are a luxury item and many other luxury items are taxed.
I'm fine with this and I don't think it is incramentalism, after all they are taxing all games not just the "bad" ones.
I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
Mark Twain
There are ways to tax and there are ways to tax.
Most are highly inequitious - such as this tax.
Why should people buying software be paying for schools?
Is there some link here? of course not.
There are well-known principles of general taxation which are equitious and minimize the discouragement caused by taxation to industry. These need to be followed at all times.
ANYONE suggesting tax should be done otherwise is a complete idiot with regard to economics and should be kept WELL away from any such decisions.
Would you have a politician making design decisions for particle accelerators? of course not - you know full well that simply being a politician doesn't make you a physicist.
In EXACTLY the same way, being a politician does not make you an economist - and if politicians are then making economic decisions, their decisions will lead to an economy in the exact same state as the particle accelerator they would otherwise have built.
Tax is too complicated and too closely related to freedom to be used to implement political policy.
How about a tax on Democrats who don't think there are enough taxes? Maybe we could tax them out of existence.
And it's not even a tax on the kids, but on their parents. Just another school tax being described as something other than it really is (i.e. I'm taxing kids who buy video games to pay for their schools.)
Or we could tax stupidity. That would put the Democrats out of business before the Republicans -- but not by much!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Would Windows be considered taxable because it afterall contains Solitare and Minesweeper which clearly are games?
Instead of taxing games to pay for schools, how about the schools just sell games instead of candybars, magazines, coupon books, etc. It's mainly the kids' families that buy that stuff anyway.
BTW, I say we should tax campaign contributions.
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." - Shepard Book Quoting Malcolm Reynolds
If you believe that TV, movies, music, video games, 'etc are free speech (and, outside of Jack Thompson, I'm pretty sure most people do), then taxing them is unconstitutional. Remember - the power to tax is the power to destroy. As soon as they are legally allowed to levy a $1 tax on video games, they can just as easily make it $1 million.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Why is this targeting video games - and JUST video games?
If this is a luxury tax, then why not expand it to cover books, magazines, music and movies (including rentals)?
Let's see...you have "Children", "Taxes", "Schools", "Funding" and the newest addition, "Video Games". A fine example of grandstanding using Political Buzzword Bingo!
I'd point to the fast-food tax which was proposed elsewhere as being a more realistic - and lucurative - revenue source. The only stipulations I'd make are that this tax should apply to all cafe's/restuarants, AND that a larger percentage of the money should go into funding Sports and P.E. programs in the schools. After all, if kids are going to eat at McDonalds anyways, the least we can do is make sure there's a gym program around to make them work off a few of those calories the next day.
Disclaimer: I am a Texan Democrat who had a government teacher who loved to rant about Texas politics. For this, I apologize.
OK, it isn't really as simple as a Democrat/Republican thing. Texas tax politics are an icky morass from whence the few who enter seldom return. First of all, because almost all of the state's revenue comes from sales taxes (like this one), the state budget is incredibly sensitive to flucuations in the economy. This problem would be abated if Texas lowered sales taxes and implemented a income tax or state property tax. Even if you aren't from Texas, you should be able to guess that the chances of this are low.
Now, the main way the state government saves money in a crunch is by shifting costs from the state to local level. Hence, most schools in Texas are funded by local property taxes. This is fine for richer neighborhoods (like the one I grew up in), but does nothing to help poorer parts of the state.
What is really needed is a complete overhaul of the tax system. Even if there was the political will to do this, it would be a huge, painful process that would be difficult to design correctly and even more difficult to sell to the public.
Now, I think this is a stupid piece of legislation, and I don't think it's going to pass, and even if it passes, I don't imagine it will do much at all for Texas schools. But let's not be so quick to accuse Republicians, conservatives, Democrats, or even Texans for not caring about education. This is a very difficult problem that is difficult to fix.
There are 181 members of the Texas Legislature (31 Senators and 150 Representatives). Each one earns $7,200 a year (really!) , your 5% pay cut idea would save the state $65,160.
In 2005, the amount of money the Texas Legislature appropriated for general education was $13 Billion. So you'd be increasing that by 0.000005%
Nice try, thanks for playing.
"(or just forgo a raise for a year)"
This is a state proposal, not federal. The Texas Legislature cannot raise its own salary ("cost of living" or otherwise) without the matter first being put before the voters (which is why they're stuck at $7,200 to begin with).
"if Chenney would donate some of his return"
"that's alot of money for a po' person like me and old Oprah"
But a drop in the bucket in the budget for one of the most economically vibrant states in the Union.
Just about everything you said was BS.
I don't know where you live, but I don't know anywhere outside large, high-cost-of-living cities that pay starting teachers $40k+.
My wife is a teacher, with a masters degree, and even with the masters she doesn't make $40k.
And just because you work 8 months a year, it doesn't automatically translate to a $60k a year salary. You try finding seasonal work that will pay you $5k per month. Oh wait, you just got out of high school.
No one is saying there should be 10 kids to a class. But when you have 25-30 kids running around like crazy, it is more difficult to handle them.
I don't know when we ever had 50 students to a classroom in a single room schoolhouse, but the 1870's are so last century. The curriculum is a million times harder than it was then, when most people didn't go to college or even high school. We may not be #1 in the world (or 2 or 3 or 4 etc) but we are WAAAAY more educated as a country than we were back then.
Don't even get me started on "No child left behind" and the FCAT. I know many teachers. My mother. My mother in law. Many of my wife's friends. They all have to teach less and focus on the bullshit FCAT.
-- Having a Creationist Museum is like having an Atheist place of worship
Your recollection needs updating to include the time period after the American Civil War. There are hundreds of thousands of people in the USA who have to pay tax, but aren't allowed to vote, and it has been that way for many years.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Hey, wait: you might have something there.
I am the State Treasurer of a small political party that doesn't accept corporate contributions, just personal ones, as a matter of principle. Some of our contributions come through PayPal. PayPal of course extracts a small fee for the service, so we don't get the full amount. $5 --> $4.55; $10 --> 9.41; $25 --> $23.97. In a certain sense, then, we are already paying a tax (of sorts; obviously it is a 'user fee'); in fact it's a *regressive* one: the lower the amount given, the higher percentage taken. $5: 9%; $10: 5.9%; $25: 4.12%.
But imagine a *progressive* tax on campaign contributions. The income tax is a kind of progressive tax; the more money you make, the higher your tax rate.
It wouldn't have to be much to raise vast amounts of money. And think of how popular *this* would be with the voters =8^D !
Just off the top of my head, I'd set the rate to be the log-to-the-base-10 of the contribution: it would start kicking in at $10. $10 = 1% (10 cents); $50 = 1.7% (85 cents); $100 = 2% ($2.00); $500 = 2.7% ($13.50); $1000 = 3% ($30), etc. We already have to track every penny we take in; it would be nothing to add another column to the spreadsheet to track this new tax.
We have to report all of our receipts and expenditures already, albeit to different organizations: expenditures to the FEC, receipts to the state. In fact, we report our receipts by transaction, so it would be fairly easy for the state to update its software to automatically figure the amount of state tax due on each transaction, and the required sum would automatically be reported to the state when we file our reports electronically. There is already a system in place to track and fine committees who do not file when required, so the amount of additional overhead required to track and invoice tax due would be negligible.
Needless to say, the only people who would be against it would be those who benefit from raking in *very large* contributions; you know, those parties already in power. A tax that no-one would hate EXCEPT politicians. And it is extremely fair. It would make a great wedge issue for us!
Thanks for your brilliant suggestion!
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
In 2005 the video game industry earned $10.5 billion in the United States. Texas has about 7.4% of the population of the United States, so it can be assumed they're responsible for a similar percentage of video game sales, giving us around $778 million to play with. If we use the same 5% figure used in the parent as our sales tax value, that would give Texas around $39 million. It would only raise the education budget by around 0.2%, but it's still several orders of magnitude more than either of the ideas offered by the parent.