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Cloud Tax
raindog308
Administrator, Veteran
in General
Wave of the future? Boon to VPN services?
http://www.techhive.com/article/2942606/cloud-tax-jacks-up-netflix-bills-in-chicago.html
Comments
That's called "enjoy your United S* of A*".
@rm_ If it works in the US..it's crossing the Alantic pretty damn quick, believe that!
Netflix should nut up and refund customers in Chicago, then block any IP geolocated there. If you can't binge watch Netflix, suddenly you have a lot of time to recall someone's election.
Would this tax be deducable, i.e. netflix pays some "cloud tax" to it's suppliers, can it deduce it from the "cloud tax" it owes to the state? Are they trying to reinvent the VAT?
dafuq
There is no free lunch anywhere in the world.
Tax collections are on the decline as commerce moves to the Internet, but demand for government babysitting/services is up. The money has to come from somewhere other than thin air.
Joe Dirt 2 coming out soon on Crackle. What else does a man need?
At the moment, governments are blowing a LOT of money on interests for bonds.
18,000,000,000,000 * 2% = 360,000,000,000 or far more (4%?) blown by the US alone.
-_-
They don't use the tax for anything useful anyway. Oh wait... they spy on everyone.
The electronic commerce still pays VAT, sales tax, whatever. People making those things also hire workers which also pay taxes, not to mention profit tax, property tax from the money they make. Datacenters also pay a lot in rents, property tax, utility bills, not to mention people working there are paid and as we know almost everywhere in the world part of their wages goes to local communities.
We may have lower economic activity "developing" dvd rental shops, for example, printing those, mailing, etc, but the IT industry is making up for it, not only replacing the revenue, but multiplying it and creating new needs which bring money and well paid jobs.
If the 9% went back into something that benefits the users (i.e. infrastructure to support internet backbone upgrades throughout the state, grants for technology start-ups, or incentives for new ISPs to move to/start in Chicago to improve consumer options, etc...) then it wouldn't be too bad but I doubt the money would be spent to support the thing being taxed. It would really suck if my Netflix and Amazon bills went up 9% each but even then it's still cheaper than a monthly cable bill and both are optional services I could live without if I needed to go on a budget.
This really true? surely this be cutting off the hand that feeds them I never heard of anything so stupid you can't blame any business that moves to avoid that.
There is a lot of mismanagement of the funds which comes in collections.
Also not everything can move to the internet, eg. physical goods. You will still need to pay the necessary taxes even if stuff is bought online.
Lastly property tax is a small amount vs applying 9% on majority of cloud services.
I don't understand why everyone is so focused just on the Netflix / streaming aspect of this. This tax is about WAY more than just streaming services:
"Chicago is also extending its Lease Transaction tax to extract 9 percent from databases and cloud computing platforms that do business in the city. Companies in Chicago that are paying for server time from platforms like Amazon Web Services will therefore face an extra $9 charge for every $100 they spend."
So all you VPS providers out there... Apparently time to sort out those customers with a Chicago billing address and make sure they are being invoiced and taxed properly.
Totally inane. No way this tax holds up once someone like the EFF decides to put it to the test.
I dont know, as i understand it, local government bodies in US can tax whatever they please, so, if legally challenged, I dont think the action will be successful.
But people can vote with their feet. Personally I love chicago's connectivity, but if this tax will be applied against me, I will simply cancel because I do not agree with it. If more people will do this and DCs there wills tart struggling, they will make sure the local government understands the issue.
This is by far the most ridiculous thing I have heard after SOPA.
You are correct on the first can count -- they can tax whatever they please. Or at least try to. That doesn't mean all taxation is legal (taxation is actually limited by the constitution), and the only way to make that determination is in court.
If you are into it, check out this lengthy article:
http://www.reedsmith.com/The-City-of-Chicago-Moves-Aggressively-to-Tax-The-Cloud-06-17-2015/
Or just hop down to the final paragraph:
"Nonetheless, there are strong arguments that both rulings run afoul of provisions in the Federal Telecommunications Act, the Internet Tax Freedom Act, and federal and Illinois constitutional limits on taxation. In addition, the rulings gloss over many details of applicable federal law and how telecommunications and computer networks operate, and assume the simplest factual scenarios that do not realistically comport with how many providers and their customers transact business. "