Slashdot Mirror
UK Possibly Exploring "Google Tax"
The UK government is considering proposals that could hit Google and other search engines with an online advertising tax to help boost revenue for the BBC. While these proposals are still in their infancy, some are already attacking the idea of taxing a growth industry in the middle of a recession. "Sources say the proposed taxes have been discussed by officials at the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. They would also have to be approved by the Treasury before they could be introduced. The chair of the culture, media and sport committee, Conservative MP John Whittingdale, dismissed what he called a 'windfall tax' on search engines."
If it moves, tax it.
If it keeps moving, regulate it.
If it stops moving, subsidize it.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
The Daily Mail is a right wing (slightly upmarket) tabloid who attack the Labour government on a regular basis. While the idea of such a tax may or may not be true, you can be certain this particular newspaper will try to spin in in a manner that is comensurate with its Conservative politics.
Of course, the current Government has given them plenty of ammunition, so it's quite possible that such an approach being considered. The source, however, can be compared to a news outlet such as Fox News.
This government is actually moronic enough to make me wish the Tories were in power.
On this side of the pond, I was fascinated recently to see the number of tax protests being organized by local elected Democrats. It suited the national media's agenda to portray the tax protests as some kind of right wing/redneck phenomenon, but it was clear to anyone on the ground that it cut across the whole political spectrum.
* This is the Daily Mail - a notoriously unpleasant and right-wing newspaper which leaps at any chance to run "shock horror" stories about things like this even if they aren't actually necessarily 100% true, because it sells newspapers to their target market (right-wing anti-government types).
* The Daily Mail doesn't like the BBC either.
* "Ministers are considering" is generally code for "Someone suggested this in passing". It doesn't mean at all that there's any actual policy there or anything else. Hell, it might just mean someone talked to someone in the pub who suggested it in passing.
In summary, take this story with a pinch of salt. It might become a more concrete proposal at some point in the future, but I think that'd be unlikely.
If it shuts people up about twitter, that might be one of my favorite taxes of all time.
If you're so angry about it, why don't you twitter to let people know?
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
It won't go that far. Google will simply pass it on to UK advertisers. Google marches on - end of story.
Why can't all fpga/microcontroller manufacturers just release free optimizing compilers???
The issue is that it is possible now to watch all of the BBC's programming on demand for a week after it is broadcast without having a TV. No TV=no TV license. And the BBC is trying to expand its tax into this new medium.
Actually the Google connection seems excessively tenuous; likely they'll just charge us £200 for the privilege of having a functioning internet connection.
All intents and purposes. Not intensive purposes.
The article is from the Daily Mail, hardly a good source. For instance: "It is thought, however, that the money, supposedly earmarked for broadband services, would also go to boost public service broadcasters."
Translation: The Daily Mail wanted an anti-BBC headline to support their political stance, so they made shit up.
The last sentence in the article is the most useful: "A spokesman for the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform said: 'There are no plans to impose new taxes.'"
Get back to me when a real newspaper has an article on this.