Support Ebay in the Fight Against Digital Download Tax
March 1, 2009 by srfto
Digital Distribution Tax is spreading like wild fire lately. In fact,seventeen or more States have already adopted it, and more are considering it.
Back in the old days, consumers would download games such as World of Warcraft to avoid the sales tax from stores. Now it doesn’t make a difference whether you download or buy it from the store. The proposed tax is poised to increase the costs of downloading music, books, videos, games, and other similar content.
Wisconsin was the most recent State to adopt the tax law by adding 5% to all digitally distributed goods. State Rep. Scott Suder, commented, “it’s basically taxing students to fill in the Doyle budget shortfall, and I think that’s unfair.”
During these bad economic times its a really bad move for the States to tax the consumers. Also hurting the environment in a way. Steve Delbiano from NetChoice, which encompasses Ebay, Aol, Yahoo and many others, points out that this tax is anything but environmentally friendly.
“With global warming and a world that’s running out of oil, the last thing governments should do is add taxes on something that uses no oil and produces no carbon. A digital download is the greenest way to buy music, movies, and software, since it requires no driving to the store, no delivery vans, and no plastics or packaging.”
ECA which stands for Entertainment Consumers Association will be rallying in Washington, Mississippi and New York to protest DLC tax bills that are currently working their way through their respective state legislatures.
Probably like most of you, I’ve received a email today from eBay:
Tell Congress, “No New Net Taxes”
Internet Sales Taxes–Your costs go up. Your buyers’ costs go up. You are required to comply with the same tax laws as the nation’s largest retailers. This scenario could soon become reality.
The sales tax laws governing today’s Internet and catalog retailers are simple: If you sell something to a person living in your state, you collect sales tax. If that customer doesn’t live in your state, you don’t collect the tax. However, a number of state governments and the biggest retail giants in America are planning an aggressive lobbying campaign to change the law. They want to require small retailers to operate like the biggest retail chains, collecting taxes everywhere.
We all know times are tough and state governments are looking for more tax money. Likewise, big retailers see an opportunity to gain a competitive edge by imposing new costs and higher prices on their smallest competitors. Luckily, the tax ground-rules can’t be changed without congressional action. There’s still time to stand up and be counted. If you think adding a new tax burden on small Internet retailers is a bad idea, now is the time to make your voice heard. Click here to send a letter to your U.S. Representative and Senators today.
It won’t be easy. But together, Internet retailers like you can stop these new taxes.
Sincerely,
Tod Cohen
VP and Deputy General Counsel, Government Relations
Everyone should help stand up against the tax law. Help the people, environment, and the economy.
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Yes, the gov has gone broke and now it want to tax everything from its citizen to spend frivolously more on the war in iraq, $5000 office supplies and such.
Yeah for liberals!!! This one is really painful because it’s not just the “rich” that download, now EVERYONE will be paying taxes! Aren’t taxes great! Hey let’s make government bigger! Healthcare, education, food and housing for everyone and the top 1% will pay for us all! Government can end all sadness if we make gov’t big enough. Equal outcomes for all!!!!
If you think net taxes are bad, get used to it, we’re living in a socialist regime. Who do you think we will attract under our newfound socialism? a) people who need handouts and are lazy? b) hard working sucessful people who want all their hard work and brilliance sucked away in taxes? Which of those two groups will be more inclined to leave?
When Daimler (a German company) merged with Chrysler (a crappy American company), they needed to chose where to base their headquarters. They chose Germany becasue in foolishly basing it here they would have had to pay 23% MORE taxes. OUR TAX CODE IS SHIPPING JOBS OVERSEAS. CORPORATIONS ARE ACTING DEFENSIVELY. Why would a corporation want to pay higher taxes and charge more for their goods? Or perhaps the answer to an oppresive tax code is to charge more taxes and impose a tarrif on those darn countries that can produce the same good at a cheaper rate than we can with socialism.
Its what the Government’s wanted all along the abolition of the Bit torrent dowloaders and free file sharing, so they could Tax cyberspace , Greedy bastards
@longtime taxpayer, I guess you’re one of those guys on the right who has no idea what socialism is, makes me embarrassed to have people like that on my side, socialism really only exists in Cuba and Latin America, even China cannot be described as socialist anymore, its a weird mix of capitalism, fascism, and socialism.
America is not a socialist state and never will become one, we’re seeing these crazy ideas at the moment due to panic, among politicians, and the complete balls up made by the banks. Its going to be a long hard couple of years but things will pick up, because capitalism is the only system that works.
The goods an services tax should apply to downloads. In my opinion it is the software companies that should encourage users to download by making download options cheaper.
PS: This has nothing to do with socialism or capitalism. Get some education.
People will still find ways to download something for free, nobody wants to pay for this, especially if there exists rapidshare with its search engines like http://rapidqueen.com