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Wisconsin Passes Digital Download Tax
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.
I'm a little confused how they're going to enforce this law against companies that have no physical presence in the state? I did not see that addressed in the article.
Option 1: Start using PayPal with an out-of-state relative's address
Option 2: Get a PO box over state lines, and open a bank account there while you're at it.
I am curious, though - they expect to make $6.7m per year... how much of that will disappear into enforcement and accounting? Doesn't really seem like there's enough return on it to balance the hordes of pissed-off constituents.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Has something changed recently that makes all these states think Quill Corp. v. North Dakota no longer applies? Are they just following New York's lead and hoping the opinion is reversed? This is 17 year old case law; I don't see what would have changed to warrant reversing the precedent.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
A tax on auto insurance? That's a regressive one. Oh, do they want more uninsured drivers on the road? Lovely. I can see how everybody wins with that proposal.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
You want to tax digital downloads? Fine. Then give this Texan representation in your legislature. Otherwise, fuck off.
"Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Take his fish away and tell him he's lucky just to be alive, and he'll figure out how to catch another fish for you to take away tomorrow!"
I guess the governor of Wisconsin has read the Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates.
No taxes on our torrent downloads, either.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Hollywood companies are also big enough they can keep their profits in shelter corporations that are in low-tax states instead.
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?!
Right there...that big gaping shot gun hole called idle.
Both parties have figured out that the best way to get control is to take advantage of the fact that everybody thinks everybody else is an idiot and cannot be trusted with their own money.
Nobody in their right mind will vote Govt. into taking decision making power over themselves but it's usually acceptable to do it to 'those people'.
The net result of this is that if you are in the under six-figure income bracket you'd probably better get used to the idea that there will soon be a bureaucracy in charge of everything in you life.
If you were capable of making good decisions you'd be wealthier wouldn't you?
Similarly, those of you who are in the over six-figure bracket will get your own bureaucracy to redistribute the wealth. No don't whine. You get your own welfare too.
Everything has to be managed. And, of course, anything not controlled by bureaucrats is not managed.
An interesting statement. So, you think it's only "fair" that everything should be taxed? One cold argue that a tax on brick and mortar stores pays all the services the state provides: a road to get to the store, police to watch the store, and... what else does the state provide? For the on-line stores? Would it be fair to make the internet sellers pay for the services only the brick and mortar stores need?
Okay, so the state provides schooling for the poor. But then, why do rich people pay income tax? Isn't that meant to redistribute wealth, to let the poor have the same opportunities the rich had?
Let's put is this way: taxes are never fair. They are an unavoidable evil. Robert Heinlein said it best, "The power to tax, once conceded, has no limits; it contains until it destroys." ("The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress", 1966)
"Internet vendors shouldn't have a tax-exempt advantage over Wisconsin's brick-and-mortar retail stores."
Umm, what? We're not talking about selling physical products, we're talking about selling data. Are there any brick and mortar stores in WI that let you come in and pay to download things to your USB drive using a connection at the cash register or something?
What exactly will Wisconsin do with this tax revenue? Will they now start providing their ALL of their citizens with Free Health Care?
I suspect not. What exactly CANT wisconsin do that they're already doing with their current taxes?
If we're going to tax our citizens more, then lets provide them with more services!
When i'm buying something, i want to know what i'm getting, and it better be worth it.
Wiki France.
Now, explain how we can keep adding so many government jobs and not expect the burden to become too much?
Cherrypicking statistics is easy. Let's put those numbers in perspective
Total goverment employment growth 1997-2007: 12.3%
Total population growth 1997-2007: 12.7% (Using 267,000,000 and 301,000,000)
Sure, the goverment is employing more people now. Oh, dear I wonder why. Could it be because there are more people in the country than there used to be.
We are creating more non wealth producing jobs than wealth producing jobs.
Ah damn. Another one who thinks that the goverment doesn't produce wealth. I guess you are now thinking about claiming that the goverment doesn't earn money, it just taxes the private sector. That is the standard propaganda used. The statement is literally true, but is a simple deception.
Using that incorrect reasoning, no private business makes any money either. Because every single one has to get their money from other companies in the private sector. One company getting more money means that the remaining companies gets less. A wealth transfer as some like to call it. And no, taxing is no different than private companies charging for services. It is just that anyone living in a country has a life long contract with the Goverment business. It sucks to be in such a contract. But that is the price for not having your own private army.
All of this of course have nothing to do with wealth creation. Wealth is created by workers who do productive work, farmers, factory workers, miners, teachers, policemen, road workers. Some work in the public sector, and some in the private sector. There are of course also many mostly unproductive or even contraproductive jobs in both sectors.
So we have this big slow down, with many private sector jobs lost, yet government keeps growing
That one is simple to understand. Firing someone costs a private company nothing, but it costs the goverment in a loss of production that can no longer be taxed. By employing the citizen instead of letting him go unemployed the goverment creates work that can be taxed.
As long as the value of the work created is greater than the surrounding expenses of employing, it is a win for the goverment. This of course only applies as long as the person in question don't have a large chance of getting employed in the private sector, because in that case you have to start comparing the relative worths of the private and public sector jobs.
We are simply running amok. The real problem with government paid jobs is that are nearly impossible to do away with them.
And yet the republicans cried when the jobs the stimulus package created temporary jobs. That of course was the whole point. Creating temporary jobs in a recession to avoid having labor go unused while not creating permanent jobs that are difficult to make away with.
If you want to yell at wastage, yell at the bailouts (bank, auto industry, mortage). Those are about throwing money at bad investments which is almost always a bad idea.
Yes because we all know that a privately run fire department would be a much better use of tax payer's dollars. Or a privatized police force is the best use of a community's resources.
Also city streets should be an amalgam of competing enterprises trying to win your daily commuting nickles.
Needless to say I disagree with your assertion that EVERY enterprise performs better when exposed to competitive pressure.