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New York may soon pay taxes on downloadable content

by rawmeatcowboy
17 December 2008
GN 1.0 / 2.0

From the New York Daily News…

Gov. Paterson’s proposed $121 billion budget hits New Yorkers in their iPods - and nickels-and-dimes them in lots of other places, too.

Trying to close a $15.4 billion budget gap, Paterson called for 88 new fees and a host of other taxes, including an “iPod tax” that taxes the sale of downloaded music and other “digitally delivered entertainment services.”

Close Digital Property Taxation Loophole. Imposes state and local sales tax on purchases of prewritten software, digital audio, audio-visual and text files, digital photographs, games, and other electronically delivered entertainment services to achieve tax parity. For example, with the passage of this bill, a book, song, album, or movie would be subject to sales tax no matter if it was bought at a brick and mortar store or downloaded online.

Obviously, this would impact a lot more than just games, but that’s the part that matters to us! Do you think its fair to tax people on digital content? I’m not sure how I feel about this…but the outcome of this ruling could mean big changes for the rest of North America.

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