New Yorkers Face 137 New Fees and Taxes

There's no rhyme or reason, no rationale, to most of these new fees and taxes. In the past, lawmakers could spin new burdens on taxpayers as a necessity to offset some perceived related evil. Thus, taxing cigarettes was sold as a way to raise money to "educate" smokers, and taxing non-diet soft drinks was ostensibly a way to fight obesity.

Now, however, authorities are dropping the pretense. There's no cause-and-effect reason whatsoever to tax MP3 downloads (the tax won't be used to help starving recording artists, for instance). In fact, digital information is precisely the sort of commodity whose consumption ought to be promoted under stated policy goals, as it's a green alternative to keeping so many carbon-gobbling retail outlets open. It's also a spiffy alternative to dispatching containers and boxes all over the country.

Besides, jacking up the price of downloads is bound to promote piracy, possibly dealing a financial blow to rights-holders and the state's budget (typically, you don't incentivize people to continue purchasing a product if you raise its price).

No matter. New York's governor has decided to tax all manner of downloads because — well, because he can.

New Yorkers who download music to their MP3 players may soon see the cost rise, after the state's governor, David Paterson, proposed a 4 per cent tax on the practice as part of a plan to ease a state budget crisis.

The charge, nicknamed the iPod tax, will also cover ebooks and other "digitally delivered entertainment services" such as videos and photographs. It is one of 137 additional fees the state aims to exact from residents in its 2009-10 budget.

Taxing MP3s makes as much sense as taxing rainwater, or taxing newborns. So no doubt it'll happen more and more.

Previous post on the equally unwarranted special taxation of MP3 hardware here.

Comments

[McDuff]

The rationale is right there: to ease a state budget crisis. The state government, as do all governments, provide a service. Americans like their services, but voters are prone to throw a fit if you threaten them with an increase in income taxes. The result, which is not merely a NYC thing and is particularly egregious under the current British government, is that necessary revenues get brought in under a much more complicated and regressive system of taxation.

While not defending or detracting from any measure in particular, particularly a "downloaded music tax", I still think it's important to note that governments have to square the "quality services with low income taxes" circle somehow. Complex and spotty tax codes are an unfortunate side effect of free democracies with easily-duped electorates and easily bought politicians.

[hermesten]

"I still think it's important to note that governments have to square the "quality services with low income taxes" circle somehow."

I have been following your comments with some interest and agree with you in the main, but this has to be a joke, right? Are you seriously suggesting that any level of government in the US provides "quality services?" --at least from the perspective of the public as a whole, versus the special interests lined up at the public trough?

Here's how the system works at every level: 1) where direct revenues are involved, they acquire funds through tax revenue that they redistribute primarily among their cronies and supporters and use the rest to provide the absolute minimum of "services" to the public; 2) where direct revenues are not involved, they create a "regulatory" system that enables their cronies to prey on the general public, often disguised as "deregulation" --as in the current scam in the electric utility industry.

I just read an official State report yesterday (involving the supposed utility deregulation)that claims that the locational marginal pricing scheme the State is moving to (which they call "nodal") represents a "wealth transfer" from generators to consumers. Now I assure you that this plan does not envision generators operating at a loss, so it is impossible, IMPOSSIBLE, for there to be a wealth transfer in this system from seller to buyer. Thus, the claim made in this report is a bald-faced lie and it will be accepted by the industry without even blushing. I cite this as an example of how completely corrupt the system is now --where even the most absurd justifications are proffered with what can only be described as sense of entitlement coupled with impunity and contempt.

Every single "government service" I can think of, and actually want, for instance, the social-security payments I have supposedly accrued, I fully expect to be denied. The educational system here is complete shit, and little more than State indoctrination in obedience. (Most people could literally keep their children at home, limit their TV viewing, and just let them read a wide variety of books, and far surpass the results of practically any public school system in the country.)

At the same time we have an aggressive and violent army of cops who enforce unquestioning obedience with violence and who routinely lie and make false charges with virtually no consequences. (I've seen videos of photographers in encounters with the police in the UK, and while the cops try to intimidate, they usually end up backing off and walking away. Act like that with the cops in this country, they will taser you at a minimum, possibly beat you, and most certainly arrest you and then file false charges against you for assaulting a police officer).

We have a huge prison system and more prisoners than a "communist" country like China with four times our population --yet China is held out to Americans as an example of totalitarianism. Then we have a huge predatory military-industrial-complex that is self-interested in maximizing the amount of chaos and violence in the world. And I'm not even going to touch the subject of our predatory financial system.

Most of the services our government provides, we, and the rest of the world, would be better off without. I think the kinds of "services" you have in mind --the kind that benefit the public at large-- are mostly unfunded now, and will remain unfunded in the future. We could fund all these "services" and cut budgets at every level of government by 50%, and possibly even by 80-90%. The government in the US is almost exclusively a wealth transfer mechanism from the middle and lower classes to the ruling elites and their corporate kleptocracy.

The current system is FUBAR. It's too late to write your congressman or MP, it's already firmly in the hands of criminals who willfully and brazenly disregard the law with no fear of the consequences. The only way out of this mess is non-violent mass resistance and the mass refusal of continued cooperation, and I don't see the slightest sign of that happening in this country.

[Dio Gratia]

Sounds like taxing interstate commerce to me.