Yup, that's what state representative Kevin Ambler, a Republican from Tampa, wants to do.
Well Mr. Ambler had one of his staffers do some research, (he looks far too old to even know what an iPod is) and discovered that if they taxed every single digital download of music, audio books, ring tones and videos, that the state could get several billion dollars in revenue.
The news report on the corresponding tv channel, Fox 13, did not say how many years it would take to get that much revenue, but I will update this post if they say.
This guy is a total money grubbing asshat.
I would like to know exactly how they intend to pull off this tax.
It's only for Florida, it's not nationwide, so how are they going to implement this tax on sites that offer digital downloads?
Music, for example, are they going to send notice to iTunes and other music sites like Amazon, and tell them that they need to start taxing everyone with a Florida address in their profiles, and/or a Florida based IP address?
Even though this goes to a representative chamber vote this afternoon, I am sending all of my reps an email urging them to vote against this.
The state has already nailed us with an increase in the sin tax, and now they want to go after anything else that brings us even the slightest bit of enjoyment.
It's not right, especially in this economy.
We're all getting battered here by losing jobs and homes, the cost of living increasing, the price of gas and essentials like food and medicine keep going up, and they upped the sin tax on April 1st, and now this.
Why don't they just hand every citizen a rope so we can all hang ourselves because life is kicking us in the ass over and over and over, and we're stressed the fuck out and depressed.
I urge every single Florida resident to send emails to their state reps this morning, do it immediately, and tell them to not pass this amendment.
====================
He has filed an amendment to a bill that aims to repeal a variety of tax exemptions.This amendment would tax us on all digital downloads in the state of Florida, and the reason it's being done?
The amendment would establish a tax on "digital downloads" including music, audio books, ring-tones and videos.
The average price increase would probably be around seven cents per 99 cent download.
Ambler also filed another amendment that has to do with air-craft taxes.
The measure is set for a chamber vote sometime Tuesday afternoon.
Well Mr. Ambler had one of his staffers do some research, (he looks far too old to even know what an iPod is) and discovered that if they taxed every single digital download of music, audio books, ring tones and videos, that the state could get several billion dollars in revenue.
The news report on the corresponding tv channel, Fox 13, did not say how many years it would take to get that much revenue, but I will update this post if they say.
This guy is a total money grubbing asshat.
I would like to know exactly how they intend to pull off this tax.
It's only for Florida, it's not nationwide, so how are they going to implement this tax on sites that offer digital downloads?
Music, for example, are they going to send notice to iTunes and other music sites like Amazon, and tell them that they need to start taxing everyone with a Florida address in their profiles, and/or a Florida based IP address?
Even though this goes to a representative chamber vote this afternoon, I am sending all of my reps an email urging them to vote against this.
The state has already nailed us with an increase in the sin tax, and now they want to go after anything else that brings us even the slightest bit of enjoyment.
It's not right, especially in this economy.
We're all getting battered here by losing jobs and homes, the cost of living increasing, the price of gas and essentials like food and medicine keep going up, and they upped the sin tax on April 1st, and now this.
Why don't they just hand every citizen a rope so we can all hang ourselves because life is kicking us in the ass over and over and over, and we're stressed the fuck out and depressed.
I urge every single Florida resident to send emails to their state reps this morning, do it immediately, and tell them to not pass this amendment.
Shhhhhh...don't give Massachusetts any ideas! They already want to raise our sales tax from 5% to 6.25% (this has passed in the legislature, but the governor wants to veto it, let's hope he does). They've raised the cigarette tax recently by something like $1.00, a pack of smokes here is now almost ten bucks. They've also talked about raising the gasoline tax.
Oh, and get this...they also want to make stores up in sales-tax-free New Hampshire check every customers' ID, and if they are from Massachusetts, to collect MA sales tax from them. There is NO way anyone could possibly enforce this; how can one state tell another what to do like this?
So if anyone in MA heard about this ridiculous digital download tax idea, they'd be all over that one, too.
These fatcat politicians need to look into themselves first, take pay cuts like so many regular people are, and cut back on their ridiculous spending. But we all know that will never happen, they'll just keep shaking us regular people down until there's nothing left to shake from us.
Um, that's crazy. Like you said, how would they be able to regulate sites like iTunes?
Geez. You know, it would be one thing if they were actually going to do something constructive with the tax. But the money it would generate would only go to fatten the politicians' collective wallets, not improve schools or health care or anything helpful.
I hope it doesn't go through. That sucks.
That's ridiculous and an invasion of privacy...they'd need far too much monitoring to be able to enforce who should and should not pay extra.
Ask me about Ambler some other time. He chooses great friends.