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California Lawmaker Proposes Music Download Tax
modemac writes "Sacramento, California Assemblyman Charles Calderon wants to expand a 75-year-old sales tax on 'tangible personal property' to include music downloads from iTunes and other music-download sites. The tax would specifically apply to music downloads, but the estimate used in this article for revenue generated by 'Net downloading also "includes pornography downloads." The measure, AB 1956, will be considered on Monday, April 14th."
Does this mean we might be able to get a tax deduction for pr0n?
Since all the pr0n is from California anyway, does this mean we owe back taxes from all those free downloads?
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
The government has no authority to take a cut of anything they wish. To stick it to the man, many would just circumvent the system.
Does that mean that, in California, we'd actually own the music files, and would not be able to be prosecuted for shifting those files, breaking the encryption, etc?
Also, what does "tangible" mean? To me, it means something a bit more permanent than bits on a disk. After all, if someone gets near it with a magnet, there goes your "tangible" property. The same cannot be said for a car, a bookshelf, a can of paint, etc.
If music, etc is "tangible property" now, does that mean we get the same kind of fair use we expect from the other kinds of "tangible property" we own?
That should read: "Idiot Lawmaker Proposes Music Download Tax" but that may be redundant. Besides the obvious fact that it would be very hard to police (esp. the pr0n) this would lead to more piracy. Only legitimate outlets would be effected.
"But his measure is being soundly criticized by Republicans, who are opposed to any tax increases to solve the deficit problem."
So if you're not FOR the tax, you don't want to lower the deficit!
" His bill, AB 1956, comes as Apple reports that its iTunes store has leap-frogged over Wal-Mart to become the top music retailer in the United States with more than 4 billion downloads sold."
Odds are this bill comes AS A RESULT of iTunes leapfrogging Wal-Mart.
If there's one thing the music companies have made clear, it's that we don't own anything when we purchase songs online. We're merely licensing the song for limited uses under their EULA.
Apparantly they think music piracy isn't rampant enough and feel the need to encourage it with a tax on legal downloads. Smart.
Is it considered property when you don't "Own" it? If I owned the music that I downloaded, I could give it away for free, and not be breaking the law. Instead, I am told that I don't own it, and am violating the IP of company X. In a way, this law could be a great thing, as, if they can tax it, then you must own it. If you own it, you can do whatever you like with it. Of course, IANAL, so this could all just be a pipe dream on my part.
start your torrents.
Why don't they just finally legalize marijuana and tax it to hell. Cut out the drug dealer's huge profit margin, and put it into humanitarian efforts.
Enlightenment is the elimination of that which is unnecessary.
Isn't this one of those things? Or am I using the wrong word?
"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted." -Groucho Marx
Doesn't tangible personal property imply it's a good I could re-sell?
If I buy an iTunes track, it's mine, sorta. But, I can't resell it, or give it away, or what have you. It's not tangible by any meaningful sense of that word. It's not like in a bankruptcy proceeding they could seize my music collection to help pay off my debtors.
And, porn? Really? They think people are gonna pay tax on all that free porn they're pulling off (ahem) the internet?
Seriously, yet another lawmaker who wants to monetize the internets to try to generate some cash or protect a special interest, and who doesn't actually know enough about the topic at hand to say anything reasonable. Hopefully, someone can slap some sense into him.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Why do they always seem to be on the prowl to find yet another way to tax us the public?
I wish somehow, we could pass laws in each state AND nationally, that there be a mortorium on any new tax being instated. For like 5 years minimum...NO NEW TAXES, and even with that...no new taxes without equivalent tax being recinded, or cut in govt. spending.
My God...the more I read about govt. official wanting to tax us in new and creative ways....and making laws to restrict more things we can no longer do (especially the nanny laws about what we can not do with our bodies etc(...the more I respect 'gridlock'.
Sadly...somehow this tax and restrict thing seems to somehow be implated in even new politicians shortly after being elected...I suspect they catch it from other older members. I suppose the only way we could fix it is to somehow make a clean sweep of all those currently in office, not allow any of them back in for several years at least...and start from scratch.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
0% of zero & all that....
There is a war going on for your mind.
No kidding... I thought the whole point of sales tax was SUPPOSED to be that it supported the infrastructure (roads, etc.) needed to actually sell the product, which is why sales tax makes sense as far as ordering off of, for example, Amazon.com goes (stuff still needs shipping). As far as I am aware, the government doesn't actually have an infrastructure to support regarding just downloads. The entire cost is borne by ISPs and the site you download from (thus, by extension, the consumers themselves).
I see no need for a sales tax on downloads other than padding pockets and paying for totally unrelated projects.
psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo
Two points
.008 cents).
1) If it is property... then Riaa is going to start paying taxes on it. And of course property tax is value based so RIAA will have a reason to value their property lower.
2) As the value approaches zero, the tax approaches zero. If you sell 1,000 songs for $1.00-- the tax on 1,000 songs is 8 cents (or
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
This is kind of amusing. The state of California has been trying to collect sales taxes on internet purchases for years, and they're been pretty roundly ignored. Yep, there's nothing that engenders respect for the law like passing one you know everyone will ignore.
Typical of Liberal Tax and Spend Democrats (as opposed to the Tax and Spend Lite Republicans).
Every year it is more of the same. New "entitlements" where people are "entitled" to money and services that they don't have to pay for.
What the idiots in the legislature don't realize is that all the "rich" people and "evil" companies, who can afford to leave, have and are leaving the state. Meanwhile we can't ask for ID to make sure that the people using these new "entitlements" are residents of the state (legal or otherwise).
Instead of fixing the problem they are adding to it. One of these days all the poor idiots who came to the state to get "free _______" will realize that there's nobody left to pay for it all, and they aren't as "entitled" as they thought.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Why do yamrheads always get a voice. We need a young government or something new. This blatang money grubbing is becoming to much.
If this catches on, you might eventually end up ponying up cash on every file that comes in across your WAN connection, including all those lovely invisible 1 by 1 pixel image files used for everything from advertiser user tracking to sloppy page formatting.
8==8 Bones 8==8
I think it quite fair to treat this like a reality TV show. First we gather together 9 legislators, each of whom want to sponsor some whacked out crack inspired law, like one that wants to tax porn downloads etc.
Then through the week they compete. Some of the competitions are simple, like correctly applying constitutional law to every day situations. Others are more difficult, like a 15000 word essay on financial markets reform.
At the end of the week, the legislator with the least points has to face off (mano a mano) with an Iraq war vet who is pissed off because he lost a leg due to lack of armored vehicles in Iraq. If the fist fight comes out even, each is given a knife. The weapons escalate every 10 minutes until one of them has nothing left to say, or rather is left speechless on the ground.
Then make it impossible for any California legislator to actually go anywhere but prison unless they can prove they watched every episode, and know exactly how their constituents voted each week on the show.
Think that is crazy? Perhaps the spectacle of it would shock legislators into making sense again. Don't ask when the last time they did make sense was because I'm not sure when John Hancock died.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Given that this is California, that could take quite a byte out of the deficit.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Last time I checked, a sequence of 1s and 0s is not tangible. What part of tangible don't these clowns understand?
I write sci-fi for metalheads
Let me follow the typical republican strategy of attacking anybody who clashes with their power-to-corporate strategy:
1. I want netizens to dig out juicy personal details about this senator and publish it online in every place: Digg, reddit, etc.
2. Form a focus group which buys ad time much like Swift Boat and puts out ads linking this senator with moneybags.
3. Publish "expert" testimonies from many professors from major universities detailing how such a tax would cause a major recession in the state and also snatch money from schools and education and send it to wall street.
4. Find out risque details about the senator's personal family like daughter or wife and publish or "anonymously".
5. Start impeachment or explusion proceedings even if they have no chance of success.
6. Link increase in terrorism with this senator's proposal arguing that such a tax would deprive the state of its income thus preventing it from allocating enough to fight terrorism. Come on the "America Today" slot at 7 Am and argue with the presenter with colorful graphics and a deep low- cut blouse with looks of Jessica Alba (The presenter has to be a woman).
All in all, make life hell for this guy.
Am sure putting out all fires would make him forget such a tax.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
On the one hand a music download tax sucks. On the other hand, if the PRK did tax digital downloads that would make them tangible property of the buyer under the law. That would most definitely undermine the efforts of the **AA To make you pay damn near every time you watch a movie or listen to a song, or want to make a song a ringtone on your phone. I'm surprised the **AA hasn't lobbied against this bill.
A tax on downloads is the worst possible way to handle this.
First, it does not solve any of the "problems". Any of them.
Second, everybody is being charged for a "problem" (the quotes are on purpose... I don't agree that there even is a real problem here) caused by a relative few.
Third, the money is going to the wrong people.
And so on. It's just a BAD idea.
California is facing some enormous budget shortfalls and the Democratic controlled state legislature simply will not cut state spending. Arnold (by no means a hard right winger), tried to cut spending but met with a hailstorm of resistance in a state whose politics are dominated by powerful unions.
Democrats in California have already been arguing for a tax increase, and in that environment, saying that sales taxes have to be paid on internet items might be politically the easiest thing for them to do. After all, they could argue, somewhat disingenously - why should everyone else pay taxes, but internet businesses not?
This is my sig.
in the digital world, there is very little difference between "viewing" and "downloading" so where will the line be drawn?
in the case of pr0n, even if you don't download it to your hard drive, if you can see it in your browser, you have downloaded it. (duh, you got the data somehow) would this same principle apply to net radio, streaming music, youtube, etc? makes you wonder how far they will run with it.
In Soviet Russia jokes are formulaic and decidedly non-humorous.
Interesting, I've always paid state sales taxes on my iTunes downloads here in Maine. I never realized until now that some other states [who have sales tax] weren't doing the same.
This rasies a basic question: Which state can collect a tax on an Internet-based sale, the state where the seller operates or the state where the consumer makes the purchase?
Let's say I live in Vermont and I buy a song from iTunes, which is based in California.
Vermont claims that people owe it sales tax because they're in Vermont and buying something in another state that they could be buying here. If a Vermont resident goes to another state with no or lower sales tax to buy a car, Vermont requires that they pay Vermont's sales tax equal to the difference between the two when they register it in Vermont. There's also a section on Vermont tax returns that asks state residents to estimate the sales tax we would have paid if we'd bought something locally instead of through a Web site that, at present, implies that if they buy music through iTunes they should be paying state tax on the purchase.
The California proposal seems to think consumers are going, in a virtual sense, to California to buy my music. Because the transaction happens in California, they want to collect tax.
The Vermont requirement is apparently widely ignored and impossible to enforce unless the out-of-state business collects the tax for it. The California proposal would be enforceable only as long as the iTunes music store is hosted there. It would likely be moved off-shore if this proposal passes.
This will likely take Federal legislation or a Supreme Court decision defining the basis for where a tax is levied: on the location of the consumer or the location of the business. If the former, every business with a Web presence will have to incorporate 50+ different tax rules based on customer location, possibly more if they serve international customers.
It would be simpler would be to tax where the business is located, but then most states would object to the revenue loss and businesses would move their Web operations to states with low or no sales tax or off-shore (which would then likely cause Congress to pass legislation allowing states to tax their residents for out-of-state purchases anyway).
As always, it's about money which is of course is the root of all evil, which makes us a really evil society.
TLR
A man no more knows his destiny than a tea leaf knows the history of the East India Company
One problem, I get taxed for phone service and cable TV and I don't own either. They just classify it as a service and then the service provider taxes me (and adds a hefty fee for processing that tax). It ends up being "free money" for the state government and the provider so it becomes a "good" thing no matter what you or I say.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
only the rich have computers anyway
they need to pay their fair share those dirty rotten music down loaders
we are taxing perverts, you want to tax them, right?
it is for the children.
the revenue will go towards reducing our impact on the environment!
which statements can we queue up to support this? I expect the bulk of them to show up at one time or the other
Sorry, it never ceases to amaze me that when facing a spending problem their first reaction is to increase taxes.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Just because they tax it doesn't mean you have any special rights to use it as you wish.
Having control over something valuable has, in the past, served as justification for a tax. However, that doesn't work in reverse; having to pay tax on something is not justification for the ability to control it.
Why would you expect otherwise?
Trust me, I work for the government.
So what you're saying is CA plans to subsidize our internet connections... sweet!
Is downloading music from that old protocol whose name is not to be mentioned exempt from the tax?
What about the cost to build the electrical infrastructure to bring power to the ISP's servers? Or the taxpayer-subsidized telecom infrastructure that provides the bandwidth required to deliver the music to your PC?
So looking at this guy's legislative website, he claims to be a 'first Latino to do this and that'. He's most proud of getting legislation passed to 'force drug dealers pay for the damage that they cause their community'. So it would appear that he specializes in vague undefined pseudo-laws primarily designed to shake down anyone without the resources to prevent this from happening (lawyers in the USA, private armies in Mexico). Basically another fine-and-upstanding slimeball politician. Wasn't Ahnaald going crunch up all this little schmucks into little balls and turn them into shiny new barbells?
Check out the shape of his legislative district (California #58). It's a true octopus. Precisely gerrymandered (an American term meaning the drawing of political boundaries to ensure permanent re-election of the people drawing the boundaries) down to the household to ensure that this bozo can never be voted away.
In the not-too-distant future, bozos like this will avoid tangling with the technicians in order to avoid having their slimy little scams and fiefdoms exposed on the web like this.
Well, if the songs are considered the labels' property, are they subject to property taxes? If I were the assessor, I'd use the own RIAA's estimates of what they think their songs are worth in lobbying efforts and copyright trials. That should provide more than enough money to the state, no?
Just "gittin-r-done," day after day.
Sales tax is levied on all goods and services (with some specific exceptions) that are bought and sold in a state. This generally includes you order over the net for delivery to your home. Sale of music (even if there's nothing tangible being exchanged) seems to be consistent with the spirit of this concept.
No, this has nothing to do with RIAA, and your free downloads will not be taxes.
Publish "expert" testimonies from many professors from major universities detailing how such a tax would cause a major recession in the state and also snatch money from schools and education and send it to wall stree
It's my money. If I want to put my money in a 401k, in Wall Street, versus your school, then, that's my choice. I would think that, if the education of your child was so important to you, then might be motivated to earn enough to pay for it. My question is, if health care, education and even food are not important enough for Democrats to earn to pay for, then, what is?
This is my sig.
There seems to be a view in America that for some reason online sale of non-physical products can't be taxed in the same way as other sales, either because it's wrong in some way or impossible to police. And yet in the rest of the world it's common - in Europe you have to pay VAT on iTunes purchases just as you do on everything else.
...they want some of that internet money.
But you can give it away, you're just not allowed to keep a copy of it.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
California is so broke (runaway extremist, anti profit, tree huggers prohibiting growth and taxing everyone to death) that they have to find new and creative ways to tax it's residence to the point of total socialism because everyone there is to dumb to th think for themselves and eliminate this government nonsense.
There, I had my say!
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Wouldn't this then mean that you're purchasing the music itself, and not just a license to the music? How does the RIAA feel about that?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Actually, there is a tax on marijuana in the U.S. in the form of revenue stamps.
I think the only people who buy them are collectors. Their main purpose is to add tax evasion charges to drug offenders.
Cuz I'm the TAXMAN yeah the tax man.
I read somewhere (ie: take this with a pinch of salt, I can't remember the source, and so can't verify it) that in the U.S., you can buy stickers to put on illegal goods (ie: drugs) that you are smuggling into the country, so you can only be caught for the crime of smuggling contraband, not for smuggling to avoid paying tax. As I said, this may not be true, although I remember believing it at the time (maybe I'm just gullible though).
OK, someone explain how this works to me please.
The RIAA and all seem to insist that, even when buying physical CDs, let alone digital Rights-managed files, that we don't own the files - what we're paying for is a "use license". This is why they have always claimed that we don't have the right to space/time/format shift, make backup copeis, resell, or generally do whatever we want under the Fair Use tenets.
Now, a senator in California is attempting to apply a personal property tax - a tax on tangible, owned goods - to music downloads.
IANAL (obviously, I'm posting and commenting here on /.), but how can you apply a tax on tangible goods to something which, under the use and purchase terms usually found with such "goods", aren't tangible, and aren't owned by the buyer? Seems to me that either this new tax is DOA, or California is about to invalidate and/or make illegal all EULAs which specify that digital music downloads are "licensed" and not "purchased".
This space for rent. Call 1-800-STEAK4U
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Rob
he wants to tax the selling of digital information.
Just like the tax that have when you buy a book or CD. Ultimately, that's a tax on information as well.
He actually has a clue about what is happening. Whether or not you agree it should be taxed is another matter.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I think it would be a 'use tax' and I think that use tax would be something that you could use on your income taxes. At least I am hoping that would be the way it would work, like sales taxes. But who knows. I think this senator is a f****** a**h*** for even suggesting a tax, and no I am NOT a republican, but I hate taxes! Out taxes need to be managed, not abused like they have been for years.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
Maybe the tax will be not on the actual IP but on the download "service". As a consumer, buying online provides us with a great discount on pricey items but I could understand a lobby from brick and mortar retailers that want to be on an equal playing field. Have you ever noticed how these taxes are always proposed by the same people that let you know "how bad you're hurting" during difficult times.
That is an excellent point. Think how effective this would be against patent trolls, if they suddenly had to pay back taxes on their property that has been infringed upon.
Not only can I give it away, I can do whatever the heck I want to do with it. Which (I believe) includes copying it as many times as I want, public performances and sharing with zillions of souls out there. e.g. I have a chair and I can make copies of it provided I have the right tools and raw material. of course, IANAL ...
I thought the RIAA said we don't own these songs. How can they tax us on something we don't own?
The "lawmakers" there are a bunch of pricks. They always want to be the "first" in the nation to do something, retarded or not. Why don't they try fixing existing problems in that abomination of a state instead of creating new ones? I'll tell you why! They are not only aforementioned pricks but a bunch of crooks that need to be thrown in jail or deported. The same solution goes for 90% of the politicians out there, some may even vouch for 99%.
You already pay tax on the utility bill.
You voted for this wonderfully funny clowns, knowing that they only want to find ways to spend your money.
Tax are taxing on everyone and should only be used sparingly. But there appears to be a special bread of people who use their mental powers, slick ads, and silver tongued phrased to get you to vote them in so they can be popular with some people by giving them money, taken from you.
Sounds like Robinhood, but the story is less romantic. It's some kid trying to win friends with money and giving stuff away.
I expect we'll never be made to pay money for looking at art or listening to a street performer? I would only tax music downloads if the money went directly to promoting the arts,
but even better would be a donate to the arts button on each site that sells music.
Still I blame you who voted in these brain trusts.
PS: Where are the folks that got all excited about a tax on their tea?
-- Prepared at the direction of, or to be sent to Legal Counsel, in anticipation of litigation. Attorney Client Pri
"runaway extremist, anti profit, tree huggers prohibiting growth and taxing everyone to death"
I suppose you'd rather have air so thick you could chew it eh? L.A. has 4 times the number of automobiles that it had in the 1970's but only half the air pollution. Thanks to those "extremist tree-huggers"
Found this somewhere on Slashdot before I believe:
Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes,it would go something like this:
* The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
* The fifth would pay $1.
* The sixth would pay $3.
* The seventh would pay $7.
* The eighth would pay $12.
* The ninth would pay $18.
* The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that's what they decided to do.
The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. 'Since you are all such good customers,' he said, 'I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.' Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?'
They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.
And so:
* The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
* The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
* The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
* The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
* The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
* The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).
Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.
'I only got a dollar out of the $20,' declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, 'but he got $10!' 'Yeah, that's right,' exclaimed the fifth man. 'I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I!' 'That's true!!' shouted the seventh man. 'Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!' 'Wait a minute,' yelled the first four men in unison. 'We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!'
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
And that, ladies and gentlemen, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.
David Kamerschen, University of Geogia, Professor of Economics.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Not to mention, everyone who draws power pays the utility companies. So, that's paid for already.
psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo
Lets see...for that $30/month broadband, we'll tack on
$5 for the RIAA
$5 for the MPAA
$5 for the APP (Association of American Publishers, Inc. i.e books)
$5 for the porn industry (I don't want to search for their association)
$5 for the future podcast association
$5 for the Newspapers (after all they have been losing money on the net)
$5 for all the spammers that are not making enough money because you are not buying enough Viagra.
where does it end? When do you no longer guarantee someone's revenue stream?
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
Let me quote you a few things from our constitution:
Section 8 Clause 1: "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;"
10th Ammendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
It has been rules that "the Congress" is both inclusive of the Congress of the USA as well as individually those of the states. This is further backed up by the statement that "Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States" where it also in the constitution specifically denies the states from passing imposts, excises, and duties.
The idea is that states may pass taxes basically as they see fit. For virtually any reason. There are some implied protections from unfair taxation, but those loop back to race, creed, poll taxes, etc.
The only protections you have from tax is that you can elect replacement congressmen to change the laws you think are unfair, you can demonstrate in public to get your word heard, and you can challenge the law in court.
Fact is, an item, regardless of what it is, if bought can be taxed based on a percentage of the cost of the item, or based on a fixed doller per item ammount. They can add this tax in ADDITION to sales tax if they see fit, and if the language of that tax does not descriminate against any protected group (race, creed, military service record, etc)
Also, someone else argued that the government owns no part of the internet, has no costs associated with it, and that this tax would not have a specific collections purpose. Well, 1) the tax doesn't require a purpose, it could sumplement the general fund. 2) the government DOES have a cost, and they DO own a part of the internet. 3) you can also factor in public education, school computer training, county library systems, infrastructure upkeep (underground pathways that lines are buried in are owned by the city, not the telco). I could go on...
California is looking to pass this law to help raise money to educate people about fair use, legal use, copyright infringment, and more. The additional revenue will also go into other programs and the general state fund if enough is raised.
Currently, you are ALREADY required to pay tax on songs purchased from iTunes. Since iTunes does not support direct taxing by zip code, there's a line item in your Califirnia state tax return for internet purchases, and you're required to sum up the total of all your online purchases that you didn't already pay sales tax on and state the ammount so you can deduct the taxes from your return (or pay extra if not getting a return). this law would simply require Apple (and others) to collect this tax for you.
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
Usenet ftw...
string.Empty();
I see no need for a sales tax on downloads other than padding pockets and paying for totally unrelated projects.
You're out of line, citizen. This 'thinking' you're doing is incorrect behavior. Report to your nearest reeducation center.
How about taxing politicians everytime they want to waste my time by calling my do not call listed phone for polling etc. ?
Let also mention the fact that the telecom industry has already been taking extra money (in addition to the taxes) from you to pay for "upgrades" to the system. So far the only upgrades I have seen since then is that the CEOs of these companies are now driving '08 BMWs and not '02 BMWs.
Taxes, meet the interstate commerce clause.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
"The government has no authority to take a cut of anything they wish" and "0% of zero & all that"
... Plus over time, they can then add new forms of data to the taxable list. Plus once its taxed, they can then choose to change the taxes over time.
... As they will then be leaking money away in more taxes, which other countries don't need to pay for the same information.
... http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=465072&cid=22544268
They make the rules. They choose what to tax and they choose what rules to change. But this is a far bigger issue that just music downloading. They are saying they want to add a tax on downloading specific data. That would create a hell of a precedent. It opens a situation that in the long term, is far wider than just music downloads.
Up until now, countries already have tax on downloading arbitrary data, as that's effectively part of the cost of using an ISP etc... But taxing specific data, thats very different. For a start, its going to need literally a Big Brother system to monitor it all. As they need to log and then workout a charge for each and every form of data.
Also who then works out how much to charge for each form of data?
Also what competitive disadvantage does that create for Californians against other countries not using such a system?
In a global economy, such short sighted state imposed profiteering for extra tax money, is going to create a competitive disadvantage for even being based in California.
Then to appear to counter this competitive disadvantage, they can then waste millions more setting up schemes where small businesses and students get some of their data at reduced tax rates etc.. But it will fail to cover all costs incurred, as they cannot create tax breaks of sufficient detail, to cover every new startup or student situation. Plus at the same time, other government departments undermine them, as they are working on dreaming up new forms of data tax, they want to add to the list of taxable forms of data.
While some countries most likely will follow America into this new hole they are trying to dig for themselves, they will open up yet another competitive advantage for other countries who don't adopt such a system.
It shows incredible shortsightedness. They are focused on short term profits from taxes with ignorance of the wider extra costs and implications and disadvantages and on top of that, will need to spend a fortune on building a Big Brother system to manage it all.
And if they choose to build Big Brother, so much for Land Of The Free?
The more I hear, the more I am sadly convinced that Big Brother is becoming inevitable, given the kinds of personalities involved in corporations and some positions of power.
For example
There are 10 kinds of people in the world... those who understand binary and those who don't.
That's because a large portion of the population are in prisons (more desrve to be). You can't drive when you're in lockdown.
I lived in Irvine until last October. The family and I decided we had enough of Southern California and left the State. It was probably the single best decision of my life. Sure, it rains more where I'm at but everything else is MUCH better.
-- Posted from my parent's basement
The item is agruable being purchased within state boundries. This was already challended with mail order, and the state CAN collect taxes on items purchased via mail order or the internet. this is not an interstate transaction as only 1 state is collecting taxes, not a state collecting taxes from another.
besides, congress would likey approve this measure as they;re already working on a national internet state-to-state tax system.
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
Right now, Californians don't pay sales or use tax on ESD, this bill will change that. The company you purchase it from will collect it and you will have no choice. Your Itunes and pRon will be little bit more expensive now. Deal with it by voting.
Democraps; Never met a tax they didn't like.
This is what happens when you allow liberals in general and Democrats in specific to have their way with your government. Out of control taxation and spending, and one socialistic program after another. Wake up Cali! The sixties are over, and the hippie ideology was a failure! Time to stop experimenting and vote the commie liberals out!
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Complaining about taxes is one of those stupid things that everyone does while they drive to work on roads funded by taxes, with sewage systems created and maintained with taxes and so on.
Even if you live in a country with the lowest tax rate in the world, I'm sure there are people complaining about taxes while the air is thick with the stench of human waste among other niceties that go along with a low tax burden.
There is no correlation between low tax burden and prosperous business environment either. The Business community *loves* to abuse what seems like common sense, but historical observation suggests tax burden is a very small component in the overall business climate in a given country.
Even more off topic, why do stories like this get tagged "democrats"? I can't seem to recall any current Republocrats who are fiscally responsible. We're going on our third decade of deficit spending, funding a war on two fronts via foreign debt and the Federal budget continues to grow right along with our the debt burden. It seems to me, the economic magic of lower taxes for the wealthies magically increasing the tax receipts is another hoax that everyone but the richest 5% will end up paying for their crackpot tax schemes.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Here in the old world we pay about 35 to 40% income tax PLUS 20% sales tax. If they would charge 55-60% right on the salary slip people would flip.
Downloads aren't "merchandise" they're a "data service", really. If you get physical media shipped to you then it's "merchandise". Typical politicians, tax the fuck out of everything they can think of. They'd tax every breath we take if they could find a way to justify it.
Didn't think the "Democrat" tag was working. Seen so many "Republican" tags recently, I was getting kind of worried.
Maybe I'm just a confused Oregonian, but don't you have corporate income tax down in California? If the company is located there, I seriously doubt it is exempt from taxes. If it isn't, then the vast majority of the costs you list would be provided for by the state the company is in.
So, sharing music across the internet would become tax evasion? Then you might not just be fighting the RIAA but also the IRS.
you license the music, and you rent your home (dont think that is right? quit paying property taxes and see how long it takes for you to be thrown out of "your" home.
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Dang it -- you just placed the tin foil hat on my head (and I was doing soooo well today!).
FBI Agent to P2P file sharer: "You know, when you illegally download, you avoid paying your taxes. When you avoid paying your taxes, the government can't fight terrorists. You want the government to fight terrorists, don't you?"
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
Already paid for from income taxes of the residents of the district in which the school resides.
Paid for by both federal and state income taxes
See previous comment about federal income taxes
Already paid for by other taxes. Get the point?
Sales tax is just a way to raise extra revenue for local municipalities to be blown on useless crap. And, by the way, It's refundable if you pay sales tax in an area outside of your home district (note: you have to pay your local sales tax instead)...
And this is nothing new. Some years ago now there was a ballot measure to add 1 cent to the gasoline tax to fund mass transit. Now, of course, people driving cars already aren't users of mass transit and therefore don't wish to pay for it. The ballot measure was soundly defeated!
Wonder of wonders, some bright light in the tax department in Sacramento SUDDENLY DISCOVERED that, Hey, we can apply Sales Tax to gasoline, which we never did before because we already had a gasoline tax. And on top of that, we can apply Sales Tax to THE ENTIRE PRICE of a gallon of gasoline, resulting in what should never be allowed, A TAX ON A TAX!
FRUTHERMORE, Sales Tax goes into the General Fund, meaning we can SPEND IT ON ANYTHING WE LIKE including mass transit, or not. That's still in effect in California, which is one of the two reasons why CALIFORNIA HAS SOME OF THE MOST EXPENSIVE GASOLINE IN THE COUNTRY! (Hawaii at least has the excuse that they have to import all their gasoline for their prices.)
This is timely because California is at it again trying to get registered car owners to pay for mass transit. And now it's IN ADDITION to the sales tax on gasoline!!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
This law will go nowhere, even if it passes (which is unlikely). The Federal government has the sole regulatory authority over "interstate commerce". The term "interstate commerce" has been interpreted extremely broadly by Federal courts to mean basically everything. Yeah, EVERYTHING. Including transactions between individuals in the same state.
Hey dip shit, so you're saying the TAX we already pay on blank media isn't enough? Go take a walk off a short pier. I'm so fed up with the creative ways politicians to gouge us with yet another tax that NEVER goes to the intended purpose. You know, sort of like GAS taxes...
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
As a California resident, I have to say our voters are fucking stupid. Want to raise taxes? Any ballot measure that says "gives money to schools" passes. And after we figure out that we were idiots to vote for someone (e.g. Gray Davis), we spend even more money on a recall election.
That's not correct. The state does not collect sales tax directly from the consumer. The business collects it from the consumer. The state then collects it from the business. It is that last part that is prohibited by the ICC. In the specific case of mail order, there are very specific tests that must all be met before a state can collect tax from an out-of-state business. Among other things, the business must have a "substantial nexus" within the state, e.g. an office, retail presence, warehouse, corporate headquarters, etc.
To give an example, Amazon.com doesn't have offices, warehouses, or retail locations outside of maybe one or two states, so any attempt to collect taxes from purchases off of Amazon.com would fail the "nexus" test pretty hard, and any attempt to force them to do so would be shot down as an ICC violation. Even if Amazon.com did have retail locations, the states could not necessarily legally collect sales tax from interstate mail-order sales so long as the two are maintained as entirely separate divisions with no agency relationships (no returning mail-order books to retail stores, no cross-promotions, etc.)
Congress doesn't have the right to approve an unconstitutional state law. They can pass a federal law that provides for Internet sales taxation, but they cannot pass a law that simply allows a state to violate the U.S. Constitution.
If California wants to fix their tax system, they're going to have to start by not relying so much on sales tax. The best way to do this is to overturn Prop 13, or as I like to call it, the "let's selfishly shift the vast majority of the burden of property tax onto new residents" tax. If you want to understand everything that's wrong with California's tax system, all you need to do is read about Prop 13, and suddenly the state's budget nightmare makes perfect sense. To protect the elderly and retired from property tax forcing them out of their homes (the claimed purpose for Prop 13), pass a law like the one Tennessee just passed, which caps property tax increases starting at age 65.... Having such protection for everyone just ensures that rich people who have been here for a long time don't pay their fair share and unfairly pass that burden on to the poor who then become trapped in their current homes, unable to move to new houses because their property tax would increase too much.
Under prop 13, new residents are forced to shoulder the tax burden of everyone, resulting in severely inequitable taxation, substantially reducing their income, and thus reducing their buying power dramatically. These are, of course, the same people who normally would be spending lots of money to fix up those newly-purchased houses and make them better, increasing property values, increasing the overall quality of the neighborhood, etc. Because of prop 13, they have significantly less money to spend in those areas. Prop 13 also means that people who have lived for decades in multimillion dollar homes are often paying less money in taxes than people who move into impoverished areas, creating an unfair tax burden on the poor who are already having trouble paying the bills.
More importantly, because those poorer neighborhoods have much lower turnover (to avoid huge property tax increases upon sale of the homes), you have lots of under-the-table trades in which two people swap houses without selling them so that they can live in areas that are closer to work to avoid paying the higher property tax. The result is that th
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
They aren't suggesting a new "Use Tax" though - they're going to institute sales tax - they're expanding a 75-year old Sales Tax.
You can't put a sales tax on a transfer of intangible and revocable rights.
This space for rent. Call 1-800-STEAK4U
The proposal is insane, since you simply can't buy music as property. Everyone knows that all you get, whether you buy a CD or download music, is a license to listen to the music.
If what you bought was actual property, we wouldn't have nearly the DRM and piracy mess as we do now. Lawmakers have to make a decision - leave it as a license and not taxable, or call it property, tax it, and let customers do whatever they like with their property after it's purchased.
I have to agree with you on this. The government tends to not represent us any more. They rule us now. I pay probably 50% of my income all told in taxes. Government workers never think they have enough. It's time to cut the government. Fire people. Heck fire whole departments. Cut taxes AND cut budgets. Start with a 50% real cut in both. If any government worker or department rails against a budget being cut, make sure to look up how "baseline budgeting" works in government. It's a scam.
Its already gone, bro.
Just callin' it like I see it.
As has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, if it's taxed as personal property, it strengthens consumer rights substantially: If it's yours, you can resell it; if you have to crack the DRM in order to transfer it, well, you're just protecting your rights as a consumer, yes?
More significantly is how this fits in with the whole "intellectual property" meme: if it's property, it can be taxed. If Time Warner claims to "own" a series of ones and zeroes presented in a particular order, well gee, that's something that's taxable. And the IRS, golly gee, should have them list all of their taxable assets and its taxable value. And ones and zeros don't rot, so there's no depreciation, right?
Computing the taxable value should be easy enough -- simply take what they've earned off of it so far and multiply that by the time left in the copyright term. Good thing they've made sure those are insanely long, eh?
If Time Warner doesn't want to pay taxes on a movie that's been rotting on their shelves since 1943, then they can relinquish the property into the public domain and get it off their books forever. I mean, hell, their 2007 financial statement says they own $47.2 billion in intangible assets and $41.7 billion in "goodwill", so if that represents $88.9 billion in intellectual property, why the hell aren't they paying property taxes on $88.9 billion?
More to the point, why the fuck are we paying taxes on something they claim belongs to them?
If they have to declare every item in their portfolio as taxable property, there may well be great balance restored in the creative commons, the entity copyright law was designed to stimulate and protect.
This is not my sandwich.
If mods were only smart enough to understand how funny you are. Hey idiot mods: AC WAS RESPONDING HUMOURSLY TO THE SIG! I guess this is a natural filtering of mod points as no karma was harmed here.
Just callin' it like I see it.
The Lobbies won't allow it. If taxes go up, less people will be buying music, and since the demand for music/movies/games is (I'm guessing) fairly elastic, profits will go down. Do you think that Apple, Microsoft, and the RIAA are going to support a bill that means they make less money? Hell no!
Boycott shampoo! Demand the REAL poo!
Basic health care, environmental protection, police, fire protection and many other generic systems
Is paid for by the property taxes where the various pieces of equipment are located.
Education of the people working at the company
Is paid for as and end unto it self, it is a governemtn investment that pays big returns already. educated countries have massively higher GNPs than uneducated countries.
The juridical and monetary systems that make doing any business possible
I already pay for that via State and federal income taxes, I don't need to pay for it again. Besides which the monetary system I use for all my online interactions is called American Express, I have never once used the money printed by the Federal Reserve to pay for anything online.
Scientific research which forms the base of any modern technology;
That research is already a publicly owned good, because we all paid for it the first time by funding DARPA.
It's ridiculous to exempt an entire economic sector from taxes. It is stealing from people in other businesses.
no no no. It is ridiculous to tax people multiple times on the same dollar. Since we already pay income tax on every dollar we use to buy these goods and services, this is simply a case of the government stealing unevenly from different businesses. If you have to pay income tax at 30% and you buy a product with a 5% sales tax, made here in the US where half it's production cost is labor, then it's already been marked up an extra 15% to cover the income tax for the larborer and another 5% for materials sales tax and another few percent for the property taxes of the manufacturer's facility. Well we are already looking at having every dollar earned only getting us $0.50 worth of goods with the extra going to our government. Who exactly is doing the stealing here?
We are all just people.
Great, now CA prisons are going to be even more overcrowded because of all of the charges of tax evasion.
Music and pr0n are the only things you can buy on the internet...
Endless taxes, yet another infringement on our rights by the gov't. Add it to the ever-growing list of violations:
They violate the 1st Amendment by opening mail, caging demonstrators and banning books like "America Deceived" from Amazon.
They violate the 2nd Amendment by confiscating guns during Katrina.
They violate the 4th Amendment by conducting warrant-less wiretaps.
They violate the 5th and 6th Amendment by suspending habeas corpus.
They violate the 8th Amendment by torturing.
They violate the entire Constitution by starting 2 illegal wars based on lies and on behalf of a foriegn gov't.
Write in Dr. Ron Paul and save this great country.
Last link (unless Google Books caves to the gov't and drops the title):
America Deceived (book)
In McCulloch v Maryland (17 US 316, 1819), Chief Justice John Marshall ruled that "the power to tax is the power to destroy." While that ruling was in a different context, that principle still holds today. For example, in Speiser v Randall (357 US 513 [1958], citing an earlier case, sorry can't get Findlaw working for this one), the Supreme Court held that "It is settled that speech can be effectively limited by the exercise of the taxing power."
It is legal to tax First Amendment-protected material, but such a tax must never:
1. Single out the press
2. Target one group of speakers over another group
3. Discriminate on the basis of content of taxpayer speech.
So, while you pay sales tax on a CD, you pay the same tax on your CD as you pay on your couch and your Jolt! cola. Such a tax applies, but it does not apply only to something that is protected. It encompasses protected things, but it does not single out protected things as the subject of the tax. You pay sales tax on books, but you do not pay a tax that applies only to books.
A "music download tax" targets a specific kind of expression --music -- and is thus illegal under the First Amendment. Similarly, porn taxes are illegal for exactly the same reason, and in Texas bar owners are litigating a tax on admission to topless bars (because dancing, including nude dancing, is also protected, although the extent of that protection is far from settled). One poster asked if the porn industry has a lobby. Yes.
There are two ways such a tax could work:
1. An internet sales tax that applies to all goods and services sold over the internet. This has obvious problems.
2. An internet download tax that covers all downloads, eg, including your web traffic, email, and so on, essentially a bandwidth consumption tax. This has other problems in that pretty much everything on the internet can be construed as speech in one way or another, and thus the argument can be made that the tax targets only internet-based speech, which would be protected.
Note that the First Amendment itself does not differentiate between commercial and non-commercial speech, and thus the courts have tended to err on the side of freedom in commercial speech. There are of course exceptions for things that are deceptive, defamatory, libelous, and harmful; however, for the most part, if what you have to say, even in a commercial enterprise, if it's true, it's pretty much fair game.
Remove the caps and hold to a mirror.
... information wants to be free!
For computer gurus most of you guys are very naive when it comes to enforcement. It is a no-brainer, if you want more revenue to increase the taxable base. Everyone votes in the Democrats year after year. I digress. You do not need any internet records to collect this tax. All you have to do is get the business records, which is easy as pie. It is done every day.
all it does is tell your device to set certain switches to on or off. That's not tangible.
They're using their grammar skills there.
I like movies and games.
So, the only way I'd get behind this is if.
- It applied to everything, in other words it replaces copyright.
- Cost would be 1% of gross income, just like a real (income)tax. I see no reason why people who make more and there for had more to spend on copyrighted material shouldn't pay more tax. But maybe it needs an upper cap or rich people won't let politicians pass it.
You thought wrong. I'm simply amazed at how ignorant some people are with regards to government.
So, they want to charge a tax on porn in California... that works great since after all, all the porn sites in California are based there and trackable there. Besides, don't forget that the porn industry is the most legitimate there is, they would never move their company off-shore to evade having to worry about collecting and paying the tax.
Boy, these politicians just get smarter by the minute. I bet that one of the one day will try to take credit for inventing the Internet!.
That said, the government (federal, state, local) can try to tax anything they want. If CA wants to try and tax downloads, let them. They're in for a bigger fight then they'd ever expect. If it comes to my state, I will be as loud and obnoxious as I can be to prevent it.
psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo
Really neat. Now this system will first have to be able to detect and classify ALL data, not just porn and trashy so called music. Now a classification system will have to be built up for this. Now once done, the above writer is quite correct in calling this the thin edge of the wedge for a huge bureaucracy. Now comes the US secret police ministries, whose Kommissar will demand that any data of potential 'homeland security' implications will have to be 'specially handled' and the recievers and senders located and potentially prosecuted. Also, porn receivers and senders will have to be similarly handled. All porn senders will be harassed out of existence in this country, and receivers will be classified by local police departments for potential risks to society. In Canada, they could be locked up as a preventative measure...for what some 'church leader' says that they 'might do'. This is like the old crime in the south of being a 'latent homosexual'. If the download, especially porn, is in another language, the download address information will be very useful for the secret police in the immigration commisariats to denounce those recipients as illegal aliens, potential drug smugglers, and kiddie pornos. After all, who can prove how 'old' the figures in the porn pix actually are or are not, after all, a person in the eyes of the law is a 'baby with the intellect of a chair' until one millisecond after the so called 'age of consent' in whatever state chooses to persecute on the basis of this. Now also comes the storage of the evidence. I think that I will go out and buy stock in hard drive manufacturing companies and spyware companies right now. They will make a bloody fortune out of this.
"Note that the First Amendment itself does not differentiate between commercial and non-commercial speech, and thus the courts have tended to err on the side of freedom in commercial speech. There are of course exceptions for things that are deceptive, defamatory, libelous, and harmful; however, for the most part, if what you have to say, even in a commercial enterprise, if it's true, it's pretty much fair game."
Wow, some politicians are _REALLY_ missing the big one then... they should tax Deceptive, Defamatory, Libelous and Harmful speech, since this is not covered by the first ammendment __AND__ is incredibly prevalent both online and in the "Real World", they would RAKE it in big time. And as an "unintended side-effect" they would cause people to clean up their acts. Only the truly wealthy would be able to call someone a dirty, low-life mother-fucker... and afford it.
On top of that, the "tangible property" must be "countable" in order for it to satisfy the "tangible" aspect. Thus the sellers of music will have to serialize their music and _declare it ahead-of-time__ so as to be able to catalog them as separate inventory items (under the same sku of course). So that means that Sony (or whomever) will have to report to the government exactly how many serialized copies of each song they own and are selling to consumers.
The Internet, for me, is a Religious Experience. I believe in the power of the all-knowing Google,the all-seeing Google-Van, draw wisdom from the endless stream of Yahoo-Answers. Lo, though I surf through the valley of p0rn, tempted and beguiled by wicked temptresses (in their shiny latex and supple leather garments), I am soothed by the visions of Angels sent to comfort me and guide me and stroke me and deliver me to the promised land.
Last that I heard, California is not a country, at all. This may create a competitive disadvantage for Californians vs. other states in the USA. So what? It's not like this is the first time. There are reasons that their gasoline is $4 per gallon and around $3 per gallon in NJ (to pick the opposite extremes), and it is NOT just corporate greed, or the rest of the country would be paying as much as CA.
First I want to say this: Those bastards!
.dirt.
Next, why can't we have an honest system of taxation.
Governments provide services. If the public wants these services they have to pay for them.
It costs X amount of dollars for these services. Don't want the services, then vote to get rid of them
and pay less in taxes.
Before you get rid of a service, please at least look at the freaking long term cost.
Hardcore Repubs want to rid services. To many damn freeloaders and government socialism. But damn it! My constituents better get that farm subsidy for . .
Hardcode Dems want to add all sorts of fluff that doesn't really help people. But we need a government art endowment for artist who make synthetic hairballs for ceramic cats!
List the services, list the costs.
Based on your income, this is how much it costs you.
I'm sure cost breakdowns are publicly available, but I'm just too damn lazy to dig down that deep to find it on my state's level.
My jumbling fumbling rant is over.