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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.'"
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.
Would Windows be considered taxable because it afterall contains Solitare and Minesweeper which clearly are games?
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.