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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.
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Start taxing religions with their mega churches, it is nothing but a business.
I watch Netflix religiously, surely that is cause for an exemption if the Bible gets one.
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So will YouTube and Twich be affected? this just another .. oh they make money lets tax it so we can pay for our incompetence ... once somethings taxed, its never removed, they just add more taxes to cover bad decisions. AKA in business terms, Other Peoples Money (OPM)
It's not a typo if you understood the meaning!
For those of you playing at home those are taxes that disproportionately impact the poor, working poor and (in this case) working class. They're worth double points because not only do you get to use money to fund tax cuts on the 1% but the people you tax get angry and start demanding tax cuts; which you can oblige with even _more_ tax cuts for the 1%. Uncle Rove calls this "Starve the Beast".
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I assume this is like other state taxes (I'm in CA) where consumers are supposed to self-report how much money they spent on the taxable goods every April.
If that is the case, I don't see the state of PA being able to recoup much of that $1.3 billion budget shortfall.
From TFA: "Magazine and newspaper subscriptions, as well as digital versions of the Bible, will be exempt from the digital downloads tax."
What... the Torah, Quran, and Bhagavad Gita and hundreds of others need not apply? Nice lawsuit trolling there.
-- Insert witty one-liner here. --
back to pirating content.
Worship the invisible hand!
You don't know where it's been.
Sure seems to me that a special exemption for one particular work of fiction is a clear violation of separation of church and state. That, of course, is no surprise, as we live in a country where a family just trying to get by and raise their children is taxed on both income and property, but big rich churches go tax free.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
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!”
Glad to see the separation of church and state is alive in well in the U S of A!!!
"...digital versions of the Bible will be exempt from the digital downloads tax"
If they wanted an exemption that would do society some good, they should exempt textbooks, but then kids might get exposed to more of that heretical "science."
is a government agent
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
How does PA tax Amazon Prime Instant Video usage?
What If they'll start busting people for not paying taxes for all of their torrenting? You know, Al Capone style...
This doesn't seem legal. Don't get me wrong, I get that this may not defy the letter of the law, but it certainly sabotages the intent. First the liquor, now this. Who is gonna move to PA now unless they absolutely have to?
That would be simpler and not create a stupid new law that unevenly spreads the tax burden. You know how judges need to have law degrees? Maybe legislators should be required to have economics degrees.
Unless you can read the original, you have no real reason to trust it. You're still going through the same sort of highly fallible human filter with their own bias to bring to the table.
The idea that a translation of a 2000 year old book can be "owned" is a little obscene. Either the translation process is formalized enough and predictable enough, or the result is made up garbage.
Although that reminds me of how some rogue fan translations are better than the official versions.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
An Internet company in PA? That is news.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
It would be amusing if Netflix et al. opted to take a small hit to their revenue and made their services free to all current customers in PA, thus denying the state the taxes they projected.
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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Not so fast. What actually constitutes the original?
Some of the books in the Old Testament date back over 2,500 years. There's solid archaeological evidence to support this. But the original texts almost certainly don't exist anymore. The origins aren't entirely certain, even. One hypothesis is that the Pentateuch is comprised of texts from scrolls that were compiled from older documents during the Babylonian Exile. Also, what constitutes the original? Is it the earlier texts that were compiled to create the Pentateuch, or is it the original compilation? Regardless, neither have been found, and may well not even exist any longer.
The New Testament isn't a simple matter, either. Jesus probably spoke Aramaic, but his words weren't recorded until mant years or decades later, in Latin and Greek. There are no texts attributed to Jesus. And most of his Apostles couldn't write, either. It's hypothesized that the words of Jesus were recorded in a document, known as Q, from which the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke borrowed from. While the Gospel of Thomas (not in the Bible) takes the form of a document like Q, the actual document hasn't been found and might not exist. The Gospel of John is a later document, many decades after Jesus. The original manuscripts also are lost, though there are many early manuscripts and translations. Prior to the printing press, these manuscripts were copied by hand, and subject to error. There are also many early Gospels that weren't included in the Bible, including the Gospels of Thomas, Mary Magdalene, Peter, Philip, and Judas. These decisions were made by the early Catholic Church.
There isn't a one to one equivalence of words from Hebrew, Latin, or Greek to modern English or any other modern language. There are also differences in the meaning of words and idioms that would have made sense at the time of authorship but don't have meaning today. There is a lot of flexibility for a translator to try to convey the meaning and make the text understandable in modern languages. Any translation of that scale is a unique work of the translator, so it's legitimate for it to be copyrighted. Some great authors have contributed their efforts to translate the Bible, including Tolkien.
The idea that the Bible is the sole source of truth is also a very Protestant idea, but one that is rejected by Catholicism. While Catholicism teaches that the Bible is true and cannot be contradicted, it is not considered the sole authority. It is subject to interpretation, hence its role alongside sacred tradition and the magisterium of the Church. While many evangelical Protestants will say that the truth of the Bible is self-evident, Catholicism teaches it as a matter of faith.
Let's be honest, you're not going to find the original texts. They've probably long since been destroyed. The loss of the Great Library of Alexandria probably took some of the manuscripts with it, and was a tremendous loss to history. Really, it's a matter of faith.
Most translations of the Bible into contemporary English are copyrighted and not free cultural works, with the exception of the World English Bible.
This is the government taking money. It's the opposite of capitalism. You think internet companies want these taxes any more than normal citizens do?
No, this is creeping socialism.
From TFA: "Magazine and newspaper subscriptions, as well as digital versions of the Bible, will be exempt from the digital downloads tax."
What... the Torah, Quran, and Bhagavad Gita and hundreds of others need not apply? Nice lawsuit trolling there.
Pretty sure this is right out of the gates, unconstitutional. Doesn't equal protection apply here? Calling out the bible specifically and not other religious texts is financial discrimination against everybody who doesn't believe in zombie jebuz on a stick. Also, unworkable: How can you identify which bits and bytes I am downloading are bible bits and bytes, and which ones are the porn version of 'The last temptation of Christ'. Seems unenforceable.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Either the translation process is formalized enough and predictable enough, or the result is made up garbage.
This, kids, is what they're talking about when they say, "False dichotomy".
(The poster evidently speaks no other languages and thus has never done any translation work.)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
So the government want a 6% tax on electronic media and you blame the companies? You actually advocate communism meaning state run companies so they would get 100% of all money and then get to decide how much of that money you get to spend and how much they get to spend.
Yeah sounds WAY better...
I'm in favor of ISPs / streaming video companies to just deny any usage of their product in PA. Thus deny the tax and get people upset at the government. "WHAT IF THE BUSINESS DOESN’T COLLECT THE TAX? The customer should report the 6 percent tax on the purchase as use tax on their Pennsylvania personal income tax return the following year." How is anyone going to track this to let the government know what they've streamed and pay it? On the flip side, it could be used as a catch all to incriminate anyone.
"Magazine and newspaper subscriptions, as well as digital versions of the Bible" Interesting... somebody needs to create a media container that uses bible verses in place of whatever functions are usually in there.
Pennsylvania long the Texas of the East....is fast joining it's northeastern neighbors and becoming more and more like NY and Connecticut. Still not as bad as Connecticut though.
As for Netflix tax, remember, I already pay a tax on cable internet. There are supposed to be regulations that ensure anti-competitive behavior. But the Commonwealth of PA never acts on them. See, we pay taxes in exchange for certain responsibilities and actions on the part of the government. Problem is, we don't receive those.
I should also mention that I recently received notice of a pending citation for having an inflatable kiddie pool. Mine is advertised as 30" which exceeds the townships 24" mandate. So essentially I need to get a building permit that is likely to cost several times more than my kiddie pool. Also please note that I have yet to get even 24" of water into said pool.
Are they also exempting other religious texts ? Is this not a violation of the separation of church and state ? Why not ?
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Streaming Services are by definition a Service. Other Services in the state are taxed at 6%. Streaming services can be considered a Luxury item, nobody needs netflix to live. You won't die without it.
the Vaping taxes are essentially the same thing. You don't need to vape. It has health issues just like regular smoking. Kids pick it up as being "cool". Tax it like cigarettes..boom done. I can think of about 5 Vape stores in my town, why on God's green earth do we need 5 in small town? Survival of the fittest, some will close.. I'm sorry. oh well.
Do I like taxes...no. But Wolf also got passed a decent Education budget, finally after years of crap from Rendell and Corbett. So if you are going to tax me 6% for netflix and Amazon Prime, oh well. Maybe my kids will get a better computer system in their school. Or maybe their teachers will get a better contract and be more engaged in the class room .
State taxes don't necessarily suck 100% of the time. there are real benefits that can happen. People need to get their heads out of their asses and realize we all need to work together as a community to keep things from going to total shit. Taxes are one of the ways we are able to do this. /end rant.
"Hmm. I am to metaphor cheese as metaphor cheese is to transitive verb crackers!"
Well, this IS veering off-topic, but...
What actually constitutes the original?
The "original" is probably lost forever, true. But unimportant. We don't have the autograph copies of Homer's Odyssey and Iliad, Caesar's Gallic Wars, or any other ancient document, either, but there's no real dispute about what they say.
The New Testament, on the other hand, is the best-attributed document from antiquity, comparable in size to the writings of Homer, with 100x the documentary evidence. The work in the 19th, 20th, and 21st century textual criticism of the texts, based on still-extant early manuscripts and papyri, on early translations, and on the citations of the early church writers, has produced a consensus critical document that is source of most of the modern translations. (Look up Nestle-Aland 28 and UBS-5.) The citations of the early writers are quite important--with them alone, all but about 3 verses of the entire NT can be verified.
This results in a level of certainty approaching or exceeding 99% of the accuracy of the transmitted/reconstructed text, as well as validating that the Textus Receptus on which the KJV is based is STILL approximately 95% correct. And those places where there is still any uncertainty do not affect any doctrinal statements.
There's no question anymore that the documents said exactly what they say, and no question remaining of "errors creeping in over thousands of copies".
The Old Testament is harder. The texts in the Masoretic tradition were shown by the find of the Dead Sea Scrolls to have been meticulously and faithfully transmitted, even though the tradition prescribed destroying the original when the copy was completed. Further, the Septuagint, a translation into Greek by Jewish scholars approximately 220 BC, gives us a good idea of the complete OT text from before Christ. These are the major basis for the critical OT text.
Jesus probably spoke Aramaic, but his words weren't recorded until many years or decades later, in Latin and Greek.
Jesus certainly spoke Aramaic, that being the language in use in Judea at the time. He certainly ALSO read, understood, and probably spoke Hebrew, as that was part of the religious training of Jewish men. He probably also spoke some Greek, since that was the language of the Roman occupation and Jesus had no problem talking to Roman soldiers or to Pontius Pilate, who probably didn't go out of their way to learn Aramaic. He may even have spoken a little Coptic, since he spent part of his early childhood in Egypt.
The writings of the NT as extant are entirely Greek, with occasional Aramaic words thrown in. The earliest NT writing is probably 1 Thessalonians, by Paul of Tarsus, from the mid-50s.
However, Mark was probably being written about the same time, since Mark apparently predates Luke, and Luke obviously predates Acts, and Acts dead-ends at about the year 67. The most likely explanation of the abrupt termination of Acts is that it had been brought up to date, and there was nothing to add. Acts is also in many places an eyewitness account, as testified by the use of the pronoun "we".
Furthermore, the hypothetical "Q" document, if it existed, must ALSO have been extant by the time of the composition of Luke. That puts the recording of the sayings, actions and life of Jesus at no more than about 25 years after they occurred, well within the living memory and testimony of eyewitnesses, in a culture where memorization and oral transmission of tradition was more practiced than today. After all, if we want to remember something, we write it down--or email it to ourselves...
There are no texts attributed to Jesus.
Well, there are, but there's no reason to think they are genuine. The documentary evidence is much too late.
And most of his Apostles couldn't write, either.
The Jewish men were probably the most uniformly well-educated peasants in the entire world, as they were religiously required to be able to read Hebrew. But in any case, Mat
Why is this a surprise? No government has ever resisted the chance to tax something new. However, the Internet is gutting traditional brick and mortar businesses, resulting in significant loss in tax revenue for state and local governments. If we want all the requirements of modern communal life which government has been tasked to provide, we need to find a way to pay for it. Taxing users has some serious flaws, but, Netflix is a luxury, not a necessity of life. Taxing luxury should always be the first revenue option for government, IMHO.
As long as they don't tax torrents, I'm OK.
Comcast Strikes Back!