Posted on 06/05/2013 6:14:42 AM PDT by listenhillary
That $1.29 iTunes song or $9.99 e-book may be more expensive than you think.
If you live in one of the nearly 25 states that charge sales tax on digital goods or services you likely pay more for everything from downloaded music, e-books and ringtones to streaming TV shows and video.
And a growing number of states are finding ways to tax our digital diversions. While some states rely on existing sales tax laws, more than a dozen have enacted sales tax laws specifically targeting digital goods.
In July, Minnesota's residents will be the latest consumers to pay tax on digital products, under a provision of the state's tax bill passed in May.
As consumers switch to digital music, books and movies, many states discovered that they were losing out on valuable sales tax revenue and decided to do something about it, said Michael Mazerov, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonprofit think tank.
Continued at link
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
Author should be Melanie Hicken.
What happens when we stop “wanting” things? What happens when we go back to a truly agrarian, barter-type of doing business to get around the egregious taxes? What happens when smokers quit or otherwise don’t pay the taxes on the cigarettes?
Don’t they realize that this sort of taxation is spurious and unreliable? Or is the word “tax” just another term taught to aspiring totalitarians to fund their aspirations for domination?
Illegal download sites will reap all the benefits.
Just pay the tax in bitcoin.
When you run out of other-peoples-money you have to find new ways of getting more of it. This is one way of doing so, taxing something that can only exist in a computer or in an ephemeral context. Like a song; sing it and when you’re done all that remains is the memory of it.
The other question of course is this; What do they do when there isn’t any more other-peoples-money to take?
For me the answer is; that’s when they come after the tangible assets. And you know something they are right on schedule now with the Estate Taxes etc.
Internet proxies setup in other tax free states will boom.
I was in Pennsylvania and needed to buy some minutes for my phone. At the register, I found that PA now charges a dollar per card, plus sales tax. I put them back on the shelf, went out to my car, and bought the minutes on my phone only because I didn’t have cash in hand that minute. Done. Screw ‘em.
Amazon prime is generally less then iTunes. Movie rentals for instance are a dollar less on Amazon. The $79.00 a year Amazon prime fee is covered twice over using Amazon free 2nd day shipping.
I sent the tax bill to my state senator, told him he could pay for it...he voted for it so he wanted it. Never heard back from him. Time for some civil disobedience folks.
It's not like Google which owns Youtube is based in some 3rd world country where lawyers can't touch it, it's right here in California! And they're a multi-multi billon dollar corp! You would think every lawyer on earth would be suing them into oblivion but they're not? Why?
Here's a good one...Last month David Bowie put out a new album, his first in like 10 years. Oh but thanks to Youtube people don't have to buy it because here it is! ......
So where is Bowies lawyers? Where is the RIAA? Why isn't the person who uploaded this getting his ass sued off? Why isn't Google? Amazing.
Unless the GOP house passes the internet tax enforcement bill that the Senate passed (with Grahamnesty and Mccain’s votes) the states have no way of collecting that tax from companies outside their borders.
Once again it all boils down to GOP treason.
Wow. I knew individual songs were on there, but that list of full albums is unbelievable.
I think the main difference with youtube is that the sound quality is fairly poor. Not that a lot of people care. I prefer to rip my own CDs because then I control the quality of the mp3.
Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner. I have a friend that is working on that very concept: a proxy in all states and a re-shipping business to accompany it. He envisions being able to have your IP address recorded as being in the state of your choice, making a purchase, having it shipped to a forwarder who in turn ships to you. His cost estimates are much lower than I would have imagined, making it a winner. Ease of establishing an account and the UI are all he is tweaking now. I told him it would be banned within a year - he just laughs.
Audacity with the separately downloaded LAME encoder works marvelously for this. A simple cable to connect you speaker output to your mic input puts anything you can listen to into an MP3 - Easily!
Yes the sound quality is poor but not by much. It’s a very minimal difference, at least from what I can tell. I am partially deaf in one ear so maybe I am wrong. But still, it’s insane the amount of copyright infringement that goes on on that site. And it’s not just music, they got entire movies as well that anyone can DL. So why is Youtube left alone?
My theory is they donate massive amounts to the DNC. Probably to the Repubs as well being that the Repub party today is mostly RINO. It’s a shame because writing good music, recording it is no easy task which may explain why most of new music today is utter crap. The real talent doesn’t want to put in the effort as it immediately gets stolen. David Bowie for example said he isn’t touring to support his new album because what is the point? So more people can rip it off?? To me I don’t blame the downloaders. I blame these companies like Youtube who can more than afford to monitor this stuff, but again for some reason they aren’t and it’s probably because they arent being sued and as I result they don’t do it. New bands must go through hell today.
Then they revert to Wickard justifications.
See, by not purchasing a good, you affect commerce, and become subject to regulation....
Why is Apple charging tax when they don’t pay any?
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