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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.
It seems that the the National Wireless Community Network (NWCN) has just been born. Comcast, At&T, eat your heart out. So far there have been a hodgepodge of wireless community networks, and many competing dynamic mesh routing protocols to choose from. With this news things are sure to get standardized now. Once there is a decentralized mesh network of WiFi onion routers, the legislators only recourse will be to make all the WiFi networks illegal or to force the source of the download (e.g. China, North Korea, Cuba) to collect US taxes for each US, State, and local Government all while tracking the private US Citizens SSN's for tax purposes. What a choice. I'm glad I'm not a politician.