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“Netflix tax” may be coming soon to your bill
- BoorishBears 10y agoHow do people so clueless end up in a public office that can even make a decision like this?
- akerro 10y agoHint: lobbyists. Source: http://www.thedailysheeple.com/what-if-politicians-had-to-wear-the-corporate-logos-of-their-donors_122015 http://www.thedailysheeple.com/what-if-politicians-had-to-we...
- dagw 10y agoWhich bit do you find clueless. Finding a way to use an obscure law about cell phones to tax people on their streaming services hardly seems clueless to me (I doubt I would have thought of it), in fact it's kind of inspired in a twisted sort of way.
- BoorishBears 10y agoIt's the difference between knowing what you can do, and knowing what you should do. Who ever came up with this is very clever in finding a loophole, and completely clueless in thinking that it's even marginally acceptable to try and exploit said loophole.
- NTripleOne 10y agoDear whoever thought this was a good idea, Do you know what else has no tax? Piracy.
- dawnerd 10y agoDon't give them any ideas. I'm sure they'd try to tax torrents if they could.
- NTripleOne 10y agoThat wasn't quite my point, but I know what you're getting at. I just meant it in a more "people are probably just gonna go back to piracy if you start taxing them on things they expect to not be taxed on" kinda way.
- xfactor973 10y agoSo what the city gets an extra $1 or something. That seems pretty silly to tax
- pharrlax 10y ago9.4% tax on $8 a month is around 75 cents. People will complain about anything.
- akerro 10y agoBut my bill is $50 and I pay for both TV and Internet and Radio! Why do I have to pay 3 times for tv?
- deelowe 10y agoHuh? People are complaining because it's a pointless tax. Cable taxes cover the costs of ROW maintenance and regulations. Netflix doesn't need any of this. We should be pissed. Taxes without reason is theft, plain and simple.
- throwaway729 10y agoI would be OK with this tax iff it was conditioned on a competitive municipal broadband offering with net neutrality and anti-snooping laws.
- ominous 10y agoHey, care to give me 75 cents per month?
- jrnichols 10y agopeople are complaining about this utterly useless tax because it shows that the city just plans on getting away with it. And other cities are going to follow. and the tax will eventually go up again. and again...
- throwaway76543 10y agoA municipal tax on cable TV can be enforced because there's a physical line to a residence in the municipality. What's stopping users from ordering netflix to an "address" in a tax-free municipality? For that matter, how are they determining this in the first place? I never told netflix where I live; they only have a billing address. But billing addresses aren't where tax is due; I regularly pay municipally taxed services for one address at another billing address.
- Spooks 10y agowouldn't they go off the billing address if they could not determine it in another way?
- throwaway76543 10y agoUnder what authority? Why would netflix cooperate with that?
- _asummers 10y agoThat was how it worked in Chicago. People with billing addresses for e.g. their parent's houses in the suburbs were not affected.
- dawnerd 10y agoI pay Netflix with my paypal account that has a fake address that doesn't exist anywhere in the world.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Esau 10y agoNetFlix offers gift cards, so you don't even have to worry about a real address if you don't want to.
- _pdp_ 10y agoI live in UK and I haven't been watching broadcast TV since 2013 - streaming all that I need. So, I will find it annoying if I am hit with an additional TAX just because I utilize the service that I already pay for to the best of my abilities - mind you that I also pay additional subscription fees for online streaming content and faster fiber. I totally support the TAX on plastic bags to prevent littering the environment but TAX on online content? What is the point of that?
- DanBC 10y ago> streaming all that I need. Are you streaming live broadcasts? Because that requires a tv licence. > but TAX on online content? What is the point of that? I guess to provide investment into the infrastructure, supported by heavy users. I'm not sure what the evidence is about usage of networks and streaming.
- _pdp_ 10y agoDon't watch broadcast cuz it is full of ads. I watch selectively :) it is also more productive.
- laurent123456 10y agoEven recorded ones, as long as it's from the BBC, require a TV license.
- Cyph0n 10y agoIf this is the best answer the cable company lobby could come up with, Netflix has already won.
- user5994461 10y agoIn the USA maybe, in the rest of the world Netflix is a joke.
- obj-g 10y agoCare to elaborate? I work in Spain which got Netflix earlier this year and literally everyone in my office got a subscription.
- user5994461 10y agoOkay. I didnt expect that. Maybe they're stepping up their game ^^ Do they have a decent catalogue in Spain? and they have the series translated in Spanish as well?
- rootlocus 10y agoHow presumptuous of you to speak in the name of the rest of the world. I'm very happy with my subscription from Romania. It's actually more comfortable than pirating!
- notatoad 10y agoI'm pretty happy with it here in Canada. I know we have far less content than the american version of netflix, but it's still the best streaming service available (and a decent competitor to piracy)
- aianus 10y agoIt's actually better in Canada than it is in the US (going by selection of recent big-budget movies).
- Bytes 10y agoThis is absolutely ridiculous. Who is coming up with these terrible policies?
- wmeredith 10y agoCorporations paying for regulatory capture. Call your representatives.
- Buttons840 10y agoWhat if Netflix dropped their price to compensate in California. The combination of the tax along with Netflix's good gesture would give them huge positive publicity.
- tvanantwerp 10y agoSince the trend is toward dropping cable in favor of Netflix, et al., already, I doubt they need positive publicity by way of cutting into their revenues because of the poor decisions of a few local legislators. Especially when it would be cheaper to lobby, stir up consumer unrest, and possibly oust those legislators.
- emodendroket 10y ago> They’re calling it a utility, so it can be taxed like water and electricity. Curious how it's not a utility when we start talking about regulating who provides Internet service and under what terms, but then it is one when they want to tax your use of it.
- thedufer 10y ago"it" in the article is Netflix (generally, video streaming). It sounds like you're talking about internet service. It seems perfectly reasonable to call one of those a utility and one not.
- emodendroket 10y agoIt doesn't seem reasonable to call Netflix a utility but not Internet service, though.
- tyingq 10y agoUgh. I had to check the url twice to make sure this wasn't a story from the Onion.
- dvl 10y agoNetflix already have to did it in Brazil due cable TV lobby pressure.
- 1_2__3 10y agoSo... What exactly is the cost to government being justified here? Usually a tax is to pay for something, in this case it seems to be just "hey we want some of that money, give us some". What the fuck.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- rileymat2 10y agoAs long as the money is not earmarked for a certain expense, I assume it is used for the general running of the local government. Like police, fire, sanitation, ect. Local government provides a lot of essential services.
- cle 10y agoI think it's more like "We can't cover our costs with current tax revenue, let's increase tax revenue."
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- DenisM 10y agoI see a lot of comments here in shock and disbelief. In the spirit of at least trying to consider the most charitable view if the events I would like to offer my justification for what happens. Municipalities tax consumption on their territory. By contrast, the federal government taxes income and/or profit. The individual states tax one or the other or both. This division has to do, in part, with practicality of administering the tax. The primary purpose of taxes is to fund the projects for the common good, plus the overhead. The secondary purpose is to promote or suppress certain activities, such as tobacco use. Tying a certain tax to a certain purpose is an exception rather than the rule. Most taxes go into the common pool. Had there been a movie theater in town it would have been taxed. The same is true if both the server and the viewer were in the same town - the server would be taxed as a business and the viewer would be taxed as a consumer. Moving the server to a different location leads to a situation where the consumption tax is not paid in either jurisdiction. Thus an arbitrary act of placement has dramatic consequences for the revenue of municipalities. It also puts local business at disadvantage, undermining the business tax base and jeopardizing jobs, so further eroding the funding of the common good. Yeah, I prefer to pay less myself. I also run a Saas business and I would rather not have to collect the taxes. Still if I am concerned with the fairness of it, I have to admit that uniformity trumps my personal preference.
- bogomipz 10y agoA consumer is already paying tax on the "utility" be it cable or wireless, its a line item on your cable/wireless bill. This tax is in addition to other regulatory fees local governments also collect from each subscriber. Why should the consumer also be taxed on the bits they move through that pipe they've already paid tax on?
- DenisM 10y agoGreat question. The distinction I'm trying to make is between taxing a stream of bits and taxing a stream of dollars. Similarly, municipalities are not taxing the weight of the items purchased at the store, but their monetary value.