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Wisconsin Passes Digital Download Tax

Posted by Soulskill on from the harvesting-the-tubes dept.

McGruber writes with news that the State of Wisconsin has passed legislation to extend sales tax to digital downloads. The new law will go into effect on October 1st. Estimates suggest that the 5% tax on "downloads of music, games, books, ring tones and other video entertainment" will bring in $6.7 million annually. "[Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle] has been fighting for the change for years. He and other state officials say it is a matter of fairness: Internet vendors shouldn't have a tax-exempt advantage over Wisconsin's brick-and-mortar retail stores." Similar legislation has been proposed in North Carolina, and we've previously discussed New York's foray into taxing sales made online in addition to downloaded purchases.

6 of 327 comments (clear)

  1. economy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Glad to see that WI is working to help stimulate the economy by pulling more money out of it!!

  2. That's it -we're fucked: Film at 11. by Ostracus · · Score: 2, Funny

    Between this and the recent story about how they're going to require home routers to maintain logs, we're completely fucked. Everything decent about the internet has been shot in the ass.

    Fuck, this shit sucks.

    Slashdot has been shot...Where?!

    --
    Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
  3. Re:Not too hard to ditch... by somanyrobots · · Score: 2, Funny

    You forgot to mention that gas is about 25 cents per gallon in Oregon because self-service gas stations are illegal.?

    Can we ban self-service stations here in the Northeast, too? I'd love 25 cents a gallon...

  4. Dear Wisconsin... by The+Ultimate+Fartkno · · Score: 3, Funny

    Good luck with that.

    Love,
    anyone who ever used the internet *ever*.

  5. Re:I live in WI, and I say this sucks by Amazing+Quantum+Man · · Score: 1, Funny

    California has Hollywood and Silicon Valley.. they should generally be rolling in cash...

    They would be, if it weren't for those Evil Content Pirates(tm), just ask the xxAA amd the BSA!!!!

    --
    Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
  6. Re:Fortunately by techno-vampire · · Score: 2, Funny

    Even better, boycott Wisconsin and buy Real California Cheese. Not only will it hit the governor right in his revenue stream, (Just like it did, I might add, when people did the same thing until they voted out Proxmire.) you'll be getting better cheese. After all, everybody knows that the best cheese comes from the best milk, and that comes from happy cows.

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