New Jersey mp3 tax
p2pnet.net News:- New Jersey acting governor Richard J. Codey wants to make downloads, including songs and movies, subject to 6% sales tax.
This would mean the New Jersey music lovers who are already willing to pay the rip-off .99 cents for most downloads from corporate sites would add another six cents to each track.
“Codey hopes the move will ‘level the playing field’ for record stores in New Jersey that have to charge a sales tax for each CD sold, as opposed to digital music stores, which do not,” says MTV.
"It’s an equity issue, first and foremost," a Codey spokesperson explained.
"We’re attempting the first modernization of New Jersey’s sales tax laws since 1966. And in that time, technologies have been developed which fall outside those laws – including digital downloads – and those are putting brick-and-mortar business at a disadvantage. I mean, if you go into a record store and buy a CD, it’s taxed."
The tax on downloadable items would bring in about $8-10 million in revenue for New Jersey, adds the story.
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
See:-
MTV – iTunes Songs For $1.05?, June 23, 2005
June 24th, 2005 at 4:22 pm
That’s all fine and dandy, but what if the store is located out of state such as apple iTunes music store? A 1992 Supreme Court decision says that they cannot do that.
June 24th, 2005 at 4:34 pm
Fuck you New Jersey!
June 24th, 2005 at 6:10 pm
This is basically an Internet tax. You are not receiving an actual product; you are instead receiving data. This kind of thinking paves the way for taxation of every dollar exchanged from customers to Internet-based businesses. Sales taxes cannot be applied to services, only the retail sale of products, and technically the exchange of data for money is payment for a service, not sale of a retail good. This type of sale is similar to the sale of demographic information, electronic versions of books, etc. and is not at all like the sale of a real book or a compact disc at a store. A balance must be struck here between collecting taxes and preventing overbroad application of taxation.
June 24th, 2005 at 6:43 pm
And they will regulate and enforce this how?
June 24th, 2005 at 6:55 pm
One of the main reasons taxes having been charged on the internet is there is no way to enforce such taxes without implict agreement of the website to charge those taxes. With jurisdiction problems there is no way to enforce it.
Further, I guess they will throw out the “no taxation without representation” part as being inconvient to what they want to do. It is beyond me how they will “represent me” as I don’t live in or near New Jersey.
Politicians, every hungry for yet more funds to squander, eye every chance for new income. If not for their pet projects, then to make up short falls that other politicians have created by their own pet projects that robbed funds that others needed.
Long has the internet been eyed as a source of new taxation. Should I come upon a product I wish to buy, it will be offered in more than one place. If one place charges taxes that raise the price and another doesn’t, it takes no great wizard to figure out which I will buy from. I suspect every other customer to be of like mind. In the long run, it will ensure that far less commerce comes through New Jersey should they be successful with this idea.
June 24th, 2005 at 7:21 pm
HAHAhA yet another reason to download illegally
))
June 24th, 2005 at 8:20 pm
I live in NJ and I say fuck you Governor Codey.
Yet another good reason to use anonymous proxies.
June 24th, 2005 at 9:16 pm
They can kiss my dirty ring piece before anyone screws money out of me!
June 25th, 2005 at 5:52 am
The tax on downloadable items would bring in about $8-10 million in revenue for New Jersey, Here’s the real TRUTH!!!!!
June 25th, 2005 at 10:14 pm
I agree. The data is non-tangable, so it can’t be taxed. Something like a CD or movie ticket can be taxed, since it’s tangible, but the movie/song/whatever can’t because it doesn’t physically exist.
June 26th, 2005 at 4:55 pm