How did I miss this? FUJD.

Carpicon · 03-11-2005, 03:31 PM

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...689.html?48312

WI governor proposes state sales tax on downloads

Wisconsin's Democratic governor thinks it's not fair that tangible items get taxed while downloads, like music, ebooks, software, etc., go completely untaxed. So, he proposes to rectify the situation by having Wisconsin's 5% state sales tax apply to Internet downloads. This is kind of like that famous hoax about how the USPS wants to charge people 5 cents for e-mail messages, except it's for real. What a dumb idea.

Of course, when you look more closely at the idea, it looks even dumber:

A little-noticed provision of the Democratic governor's proposed state budget would extend the sales tax to those Internet transactions, officials said Monday. There would be no Internet sales tax police, however, because compliance would be on the honor system.

That's right: it's voluntary. In a country that can trace its origins in part to a dispute about taxes, does this man really think that people are going to voluntarily pay a tax? And what makes it even funnier is that he thinks people in Wisconsin are going to voluntarily pay. I don't know how much you know about the American Midwest, but Wisconsinites, as wonderful as they are, are some of the... uh, how to put it... most frugal people in the country. This stereotype is actually empirically verifiable by means of the Catalogue for Philanthropy's "Generosity Index." Wisconsin is the fifth up from the bottom in terms of charitable giving, falling behind four Northeastern states.

At any rate, WI is by no means the first state to look into recouping some of the tax revenue lost through online purchases. All of the other efforts to date, though, have to do with trying to tax physical goods that are bought over the Internet (see here and here, for instance). WI is the first to my knowledge to propose taxing downloads.

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Go figure, WisTAXsin would be the first to try to tax online downloads.

tardfarmer · 03-11-2005, 03:36 PM

Thats older news (week or so). The repubs in state gov. know that if they don't oppose this, their arses are as good as cooked.

kevin1 · 03-11-2005, 04:45 PM

Quote:

ORIGINAL: tardfarmer

Thats older news (week or so). The repubs in state gov. know that if they don't oppose this, their arses are as good as cooked.

Oppose it or not ,
how will they enforce it if they make it law ? I'm not a geek , but I'm pretty sure that I could get around it with even my limited computer skills .

Sswpriz · 03-11-2005, 05:00 PM

I hope all the people that voted for Diamond Jim Doyle, especially the teachers union, wake up to the fact the "NO Tax Increase" Doyle has just screwed them, royally !!!! This guy is a real piece of work !!!! [:'(][:'(][:'(]

tardfarmer · 03-11-2005, 05:26 PM

Quote:

Oppose it or not ,
how will they enforce it if they make it law ?

It's called incrementalism.

Get it in, in an innocuous form, then a couple of years down the road when everyone is used to hearing about it, make it law.

Hence the reason you always have to look down the road at what will/might happen with legislation.

tardfarmer · 03-11-2005, 05:28 PM

Quote:

I hope all the people that voted for Diamond Jim Doyle, especially the teachers union,

Who do you think would get the tax increase? THE TEACHER'S UNION.

He's already trying to ram a 400 Million dollar increase on the most expensive public school system in the country.

Milwaukee and Madison got that turd in. Both of those welfare sucking dyke laden areas love this type of crap.

It's because joe 6 pack DOESN'T VOTE.

AlaskaMagnum · 03-11-2005, 06:04 PM

Quote:

ORIGINAL: kevin1

[I'm not a geek

Are you sure? It seems like geeks are always the last to know.......

Californiadoctor · 03-11-2005, 06:04 PM

I may actually need something like this in order to impose some self-discipline on myself. I find myself constantly clogging up my hard drive by downloading things that I will probably never find any use for.

Californiadoctor

Briman · 03-12-2005, 01:12 AM

That on top of sticking it to the sportsmen of our state by raising all hunting and fishing licenses by 50%.[:@]

Sswpriz · 03-12-2005, 06:21 AM

Quote:

Who do you think would get the tax increase? THE TEACHER'S UNION.

Tard, I know, thats why the Union rallied and voted for him, buttttttttt..... from what I know, it's backfiring on the union because they arent' getting what he promised to them !!!!