New York Wants To Tax Internet Downloads

An anonymous reader writes "NY is considering taxing 'video and music' downloads to offset a burgeoning budget deficit." How long before we all have meters on our routers? This version is just a 4% tax on movies and songs downloaded from services like iTunes, but I'm sure if they could figure out a bit tax, they would.

Comments

porn tax

[innocent_white_lamb]

TFA says that this will include a tax on porn, but not all of the lawmakers are on-board with the idea of taxing porn. Apparently taxing "legitimate" movies and music is fine, but a porn tax is bad.

Things that make you go hmmmm....

Re:Old news is old

[causality]

Most online retailers hate New York because we have horrible taxes, I believe NewEgg stopped requiring users to pay the tax in NY which caused them some issues. This will only exacerbate the intertube hatred of NY

You wouldn't think that a state could tax interstate trade, but if NewEgg (which appears to operate out of California) really did experience "issues" then I have a solution to that. Nothing would get the attention of the state of New York quite like every out-of-state online retailer refusing to sell to any NY resident or to ship items to a NY address. When customers complain, refer them to the problems NewEgg experienced and encourage them to take it up with the NY state legislature. The point is to make this an utter failure. That's definitely in our interests because if NY does this successfully, you can count on other states following suit.

If this happened, I doubt it would have to happen more than once to put an end to this sort of BS. Just imagine the precedent it would set.