Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
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
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.
Maybe you're the only one here worried about that. Some of us happen to be very open and honest about our sexuality to our significant other.
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.
I think what raised GPP's hackles was the assumption in your post that a married person who's downloading porn automatically has a problem. Maybe you're married, you're downloading porn, and your spouse is just fine with that. Maybe the two of you are looking for the good stuff together. Etc.
;)
Now, of course, if you're paying for porn, you've got a problem, but that's true regardless of marital status.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.