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."

Comments

tax deduction

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this mean we might be able to get a tax deduction for pr0n?

Tangible Personal Property?

[PolyDwarf]

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.

Re:Tangible Personal Property?

[bbernard]

"After all, if someone gets near it with a magnet, there goes your "tangible" property. The same cannot be said for a car"

That depends on the size of your magnet.

Re:Tangible Personal Property?

[ThosLives]

On a related note: If I was in California, I'd ask this congressman what benefit I as an individual and California as a whole would receive for the increased revenue. Would I get more use of my product? Would the money be used to increase pay for congressmen? Would it offset some other tax? Without knowing those things, and also having compensation in the language of the bill for what happens if those funds are not used for the approved task, the increase should be disallowed. On behalf of everyone who wishes to avoid California setting precedent, please write your representatives!

I personally don't mind taxes as long as there is a clear benefit for the additional cost. When taxes increase with no increase in benefit, there's a problem.

Re:Tangible Personal Property?

[esocid]

That is the point of the bill this guy is proposing. He wants to update it from tangible to include information.

"The notion of taxing tangible, physical property is really an industrial-era construct when we made widgets and sold widgets," Calderon said Friday. "Now it's not about widgets, it's about information, and selling information and moving information."

So to sum it up, he wants to tax information.

Re:Tangible Personal Property?

[iminplaya]

To sum it up, he wants to tax everything. Such is the nature of the bureaucrat.

Can't have it both ways...

[robinsonne]

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?

Re:Seems to encourage piracy...

[SirGarlon]

Or, it encourages digital publishers to re-locate out of state.