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PlayStation Begins Collecting Amusement Tax From Chicago Users (chicagotribune.com)
schwit1 writes: PlayStation users in Chicago on Wednesday began paying a 9 percent tax on streaming content as the gaming company starts complying with a city levy. The Sony-owned company joins other streaming services including Spotify, Netflix and Hulu in complying with the charge, which took effect three years ago. The city's amusement tax, which used to apply mostly to concert and sporting event tickets, was extended to include streaming services in 2015. That includes charges paid for playing games, according to Chicago's Finance Department. Some tech companies have fought the additional 9 percent charge. Apple filed a lawsuit against the city in August alleging the tax on its music streaming services was illegal and discriminatory. That suit is pending in Cook County Circuit Court. Meanwhile, Apple is not collecting the tax. In 2015, a group of Netflix, Amazon Prime, Spotify, XBox Live and Hulu users sued Chicago in Cook County, alleging the tax violates federal law. The judge ruled in the city's favor in May, and the streaming service users appealed the decision. The case is pending in state Appellate Court.
Because Chicago users are not amused about this.
As if anyone who can isn't already trying to leave Chicago.
It's time to leave and tell them to piss up a rope.
Tax per book read.
Lowering spending and face the fact your pension system was created of false hopes and unicorn dreams. The pension system is one of Chicago's biggest drains and if not dealt with will basically require never ending tax raises until it collapses anyway. The promise of the pension (based on nothing ore than magical wishing and crossing fingers of an ever growing population/economy) is no longer valid and sustainable.
Either slash the pensions to nothing (and yes that hurts people on it) to try to give the current people an economic chance or keep raising taxes (which also hurts people) until those who have money and/or mobile decide to simply leave making the situation worse (which based on numbers of people leaving being greater than those coming in seems to be their choice).
In their desperation to paper over decades of financial mismanagement, Chicago's leaders are grabbing everything they can with both fists and it's still not helping the situation...
I wish I owned a PO Box rental business right across the border in Indiana...
Just like taxes on Gasoline, Cigarettes, Alcohol and Gambling. This is just an other Sin tax, where we are taxing people for products that are deemed by society to be bad for it, but is too popular to ban.
The issue is, the Tax will raise the price of the product, but demand will not be affected by an amount, so it is just free money to the City. And if people just stop using such services, there isn't going to be a public outcry because they don't need it.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
That's when you structure your taxes to disproportionately affect the poor and working class because your elected reps won't raise taxes on their wealthy donors. Another good example is flat alcohol taxes. You'll pay the same tax on that 50 cent can of Pabst Blue Ribbon that your CEO pays on his $3000 bottle of Chateau de something-or-other.
As an added bonus these taxes piss off working class people who then demand tax cuts. You then give tax cuts to billionaire elites and when there's the inevitable budget shortfall create another batch of regressive taxes, which cause the working class to demand more tax cuts which leads to more of them for the rich which leads to more regressive taxes to make up the difference which.... well you get the idea.
Anyway there's a really easy solution to all this: Stop voting for people who accept corporate PAC money. Make it a deal breaker for any politician in your primary. Oh, and vote in your primary election.
Here's an entire wing of the Dems that won't take corp PAC money. If anyone knows the GOP equivalent please post it, I've been looking for it. If there's any issue that needs to be bipartisan it's this.
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When will they stop the murders in Chicago (489 so far this year)?
I should create a virtual apartment complex so that you can have a mailing address outside the city. Could be used to avoid the 10% sales tax and ridiculous property taxes.
the USPS is forced to prefund its long-term pension as well.
Maybe an federal level fix is needed
All of their powerful competitors are fighting this tax. It will probably be struck down. If it is, then Sony looks like not just an asshole for collecting it, but a dumbshit and abusive to users to boot. But even if it isn't, then Sony looks like the reason it isn't, and still looks like a pack of assholes. If the competition is refusing to collect the tax, then Sony should also refuse to collect it.
OFC, Sony does everything wrong, so this is my surprised face.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I have never understood why the assumed jurisdiction for the sale is the location of the client , why not the location of the server from which the request comes.
or the location of the server where money is actually exchanged. If I call someone in china and buy something from them mail order with my visa card, where did that transaction occur? Pretty sure it wasn't my home state and I am really no certain why anyone would think otherwise. Or at least the state needs to stop expecting the 'vendor' to act like a state agent and collect taxes for it.
The greater principle of expecting businesses to act as agents of the government really needs to be addressed. It is a common place practice, business are required to gather information the government can't legally gather and report it to the government all the time. Circumventing constitutional protections. If the state want's a tax paid on goods sold , it should collect the money itself.
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
Yet they aren't taxing Chicago deep dish, perhaps the biggest threat to society.
ZIP
A 9% amusement tax? Fuck Chicago. But I've said that all my life so nothing is different. Fuck Chicago.
Its outrageous how these cities want to fund themselves, what has Luxembourg/Cayman/Singapore/Ireland/Panama companies ever done to be discriminated by Chicago ?
When will the professional tax evaders community ever get a break ?
for a discussion. Some states charge on dollars sold (the more progressive ones) but a lot charge on _volume_ sold. e.g. one liter of Pabst taxes the same as one liter of expensive wine.
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Young gamers look up from screen ...
"Hey, I thought socialism meant that other people paid more. WTF???"
Surely the NN regulations prevented this kind of charging based on content type tax scheme.... No?
There have been a number of games I've bought in the past that brought no amusement whatsoever.
I'm thinking something like a tax refund if the game you buy gets below 50% on Metacritic.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You voted for it! You encourage voracious government for massive spending, as Shakespeare might have said, "As you like it!"
Times are better than ever before. Government spending should be shrinking. Yet it grows.
It's almost as if it has nothing to do with need and everything to do with buying votes!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Chicago is run by Clinton Democrats. Right wing Democrats who mostly act like the GOP except on social issues. They do this because the voters are used to voting Democrat but actual left wing Dems don't get fat sacks of corporate cash with which to buy elections.
Again, this is why you, as a voter, need to demand better. Make No Corp PAC money a defining issue.
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OT but I'll never understand why people still live in Chicago. You have sky high taxes, shitty weather, piss poor transportation options (sorry the L sucks and the roads are almost permanently gridlocked), high crime rates. It's like having the most inconvenient parts of all the other US mega cities, but without any of the benefits. People keep telling me that the food and entertainment there can't be beat, but the last time I went I found them to be nothing special. Maybe you have to be born there or something.
In America any kind of freedom, if it can be translated to economic in any way, is a sin, and is taxable.
Would like to introduce the socialist tax: only people who believe in socialism and vote for socialistic programs and policies have to pay it.
the USPS is forced to prefund its long-term pension as well.
Maybe an federal level fix is needed
Because the federal government allowed them to temporarily divert pension payments into their general operating fund in the 2000's in exchange for them making up those payments later. The post office never did, and racked up a massive pension deficit. So now they have to pay in full.
https://capitalpolicyanalytics.wordpress.com/2017/12/06/neither-snow-nor-rain-nor-unfunded-liabilities-the-consequences-of-the-underfunded-postal-retiree-health-benefits/
Praxy server, problem solved. This tax is legal, but I would avoid it were I there.
This is the funniest thing I've heard in a long time. Chicago city council, pay up.
Have gnu, will travel.
Or you would kick these a-hats out of power in Chicago, the peoples republic of Illinois. Your dear leaders are only there to HELP you. (yeah, to steal more of YOUR money).
Prefunding should be considered fraud and laws changed to make it illegal.
I was being entertained at home playing video games and watching movies, but now that they cost too much I guess I'll have to join a street gang to keep myself occupied.
Democrats. Not even once.
Chicago is the new Detriot.
Therefore we do not have to pay! Off with their heads!!!
if the gamers don't make much money. Progressive taxation is one of the features of Democratic Socialism. This is a regressive tax, it's not something a socialist would support.
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I oppose taxes like these, and so do the folks I vote for. I voted to increase taxes on corporations and the extremely wealthy ($300k+/yr in annual income). The extremely wealthy, for their part, bought off politicians and spent a fortune on add campaigns promoting tax cuts for themselves, leaving these sorts of taxes the only kind gov'ts can get approved.
We all still want roads and schools. We want police and fire. But nobody seems to want to have to pay for it.
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Force everybody in to 401K-type systems, or nothing at all (their choice). No guarantees. Maybe if everyone had skin in the economic game, they'd make better decisions when voting.
As someone else pointed out, Chicago has a long history of rampant corruption, as well as a long history of being in financial straits. This is desperation on their part.
What'll happen is this: similar to how many Chinese get around the the Great Firewall, people who can grok how to do it will do an end-run around the 'tax' by using a VPN, TOR, or something similar, if possible (depends on how the tax is levied).
Something else that might happen: people will say 'fuck this' and just not use the services that have the tax.
Something like this tax, if adopted nation-wide, would have a chilling effect on 'streaming services'. I don't even like 'streaming services' myself, I think they're just another trap to suck money out of people's wallets, but allowing bullshit like this to flourish would inevitably have a chilling effect on the Internet in general, hastening it's destruction. Imagine an overall Internet 'tax', for instance: every single byte transferred, for instance, being taxed. Politicians would love it. The Rich wouldn't care about it (they have money) and the Middle Class and below would take it in the shorts, living in a world where you're severely hamstrung without Internet access, but struggle to pay for even the lowest level of it.
Therefore bullshit like this 'tax' has to be quashed, firmly and quickly.
I don't think the bible specifically mentions anything about tobacco
You are correct. However, The Bible has plenty of warnings against intentionally harming your body and others' with addictive substances.
This law violates the first amendment...
Speech taxes are illegal.
Taxing movies is taxing a form of expression. Not allowed.
...but something must happen to address the wealth disparity or the country will tear itself apart...
Why MUST something happen?
Just another thing to punish law-abiding citizens and make piracy more attractive.
populous what? I think you meant populace.
When they stop living in Chicago and stop clogging my intertubes with pointless and gay streaming and video gayming.
Funny you say that, since if anyone other than the government _didn't_ prefund they'd be getting hit with something similar to fraud charges...
Nothing fun about playing an EA game.