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Pennsylvania To Apply 6% 'Netflix Tax' (allflicks.net)
An anonymous reader writes: Governor Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania has signed into law a new revenue package that will require residents to pay a 6% sales tax on their streaming subscriptions. AllFlicks reports: "Though the term 'Netflix tax' has become popular, laws like this don't just affect Netflix -- they also affect competitors like Hulu and HBO Now. App purchases and ebooks are also affected. They recently decided on a hefty $31.5 billion budget, and they came up $1.3 billion short of paying for it. The government is trying to close that funding gap, and streaming subscribers are being stuck with the bill." Magazine and newspaper subscriptions, as well as digital versions of the Bible, will be exempt from the digital downloads tax, reports CBS Local News in Pittsburgh.
Doesn't this bump into the Internet Tax Freedom Act and the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Does this really surprise anyone since it's coming from the state with a compressed air tax?
Full text of enacted bill.
FULL TITLE: Act 84 of 2016
EXPLANATION: http://www.revenue.pa.gov/Gene...
SUMMARY:
http://www.revenue.pa.gov/Gene...
FULL TEXT:
http://www.legis.state.pa.us/c...
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
The PA legislature has a Republican majority in both houses. So... Nice try?
Except there does not appear to actually be such an exemption. It appears to have been made up, probably to generate outrage and hence clicks.
Here is what the state says the new changes are. It includes 'e-books and otherwise taxable printed matter'. It does not mention bibles anywhere.
So, bibles must not be 'otherwise taxable printed matter', right? Nope. Here is the list of what is taxable. The list starts on page 14. First item on the list is 'Books', and right under the heading is this statement. "Tax is imposed on books, stationery and stationery supplies, including Bibles and religious publications sold by religious groups."
Oh, and further down the list we find that textbooks are NON-TAXABLE.
The summary is terrible.
Textbooks purchased from or through accredited schools are exempted. The Bible is not specifically exempted, but purchases by qualified charitable organizations, volunteer fire companies, religious organizations and nonprofit educational institutions are unless used in an unrelated business capacity--there's no particular preference for religious organizations over other social nonprofits, and nothing singling out particular religions.
The tax is not specifically on streaming video. It extends the state's 6% sales tax to online purchases--streaming video is included, as are video downloads, streaming and downloaded audio, and other online purchases like ebooks, apps, games, e-greeting cards, etc.
rage, rage against the dying of the light
Watch that...
Not only can you get sued for pirating digital content, but now pirating can be considered a form of tax evasion too.
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
some don't. See, the world is complicated like that. Go watch some speeches from Bernie Sanders on progressivism. Folks like him, Barry Obama & even Hilary are getting stuff done. There's 40 years of regressive policies by Regan et al and billions were spent making that happen. You're not going to change that by pouting about the opportunists among the Democrats.
And nice straw man ya got there. Shame if anything were to happen to him...
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