Full FeedCalifornia Democrats look to tax iTunes downloads
California citizens could soon see their iTunes song prices rise from the usual $0.99 to $1.07. iTunes is the USA’s second-largest music retailer, shortly behind Wal-Mart. The current California laws limit taxing goods to only real-life objects, e.g. a CD - digital music files obviously aren’t real-life objects and can’t be taxed. The state is currently facing an $8 million deficit, and is looking to iTunes to get some income.
I agree with MacDailyNews’ take on this issue - is it really Apple’s fault that California is facing this deficit, or did they do it themselves by spending way too much. They shouldn’t be taxing the citizens for something that’s the democrats’ own fault. Is this another reason not to buy music from the iTunes Store?
Photo credit [mumbleyjoe/Flickr]
Via [MacDailyNews]
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I would suggest you refrain from commenting on politics. There are clearly more issues with taxation of iTunes than just an $8M deficit. There are also questions regarding whether digital files should be taxed as well. I’ve always found it strange that they aren’t. All that aside, there is so much more to an $8M deficit than just “spending too much.” Any number of things can go wrong and lead to a deficit.
And this is not “another” reason not to buy music from iTunes. I think there are fantastic reasons to use iTunes. First, it’s fair to the artists. Second, you don’t face up to $250,000 in fines and a jail sentence.
on March 18, 2008 at 04:41 PM - LINKAndrew, there are plenty of other legal alternatives to iTunes that give you DRM-free MP3s - Amazon being one of them. Also, iTunes isn’t the fairest of music stores when it comes to paying artists; although I agree that it’s definitely fairer than piracy.
on March 19, 2008 at 02:23 PM - LINK