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The Almighty Buck Your Rights Online

European Union to Tax Commercial Downloads 27

Posted by timothy from the see-also-freshmeat-and-savannah dept.
Jayman2 writes: "On a meeting this Tuesday the financial ministers of the European Union's member countries agreed to tax downloads from countries outside the EU. The purpose of the new rules is to close a loophole in European taxation on music and films downloaded directly over the net. In the future downloads from outside the EU will be taxed relative to the European country where the customer is located (i.e. a person from Luxemburg pays 15% sales tax on a download from the U.S., whereas a Danish person pays 25%). Companies from inside the EU pays relative to the country where it is located. The U.S. has launched a complaint about these new measures and is threatening to bring the case to the World Trade Organisation."
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European Union to Tax Commercial Downloads More

European Union to Tax Commercial Downloads

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  • either the EU to pull its collective head out of its ass or to make the EU build its own internet.

    This idea has got to be the most absolutely insane thing I have ever heard of (never mind the practical unenforceability of it). Don't these morons know that once everyone has to pay by the kilobyte for net access, the "meter running" mentality kicks in and everything that has heretofore made it great and useful is dead?!

    For example: how many times have people called Company X for information, to then be refered to www.companyx.com for that?

    In this kind of scenario, people can rightfully say (provided a customer relationship exists) "I don't think so. Send it to me in the mail, because I'm not interested in paying for this information that you should be providing at no charge." Just one example--I'm sure others can come up with better ones.

    • It would help if you read atleast the blurb...

      The suggestion is to apply sales-tax to stuff you buy by downloading it from the net. If I order a DVD from the states, I pay sales-tax. (23% in Norway) This suggestion says that I should pay the same thing if I buy the versy same movie, but download it rather than getting it on DVD.

      So anything that's free on the net would be unaffected. Oh well, this is slashdot I suppose, it's too much to ask that people actually read what is said before responding to it...

      • I did "read the blurb," and there's no reason for you to be so self-righteous about it.

        That said, what does your brilliant mind think the first workaround for taxes on "sales" of music downloads would be? That's right! It would be to give "free music downloads" with the "purchase" of something not subject like the tax. Now I know this is probably a bit more than you can comprehend, but the next step in the escalation would likely be to tax all such downloads, so as to prevent tax evasion, thus the "meter running" analogy.

        Maybe if you spent more time thinking than posting poorly thought out caustic rebuttals at +2, Slashdot would be better than you seem to think it is, while yet using it.

        • Uhm. No. Wrong. You see. *all* purchases are subject to sales-tax today. *except* for downloaded content.

          So you could not, as you claim, get around the sales-tax by doing "free music, with the purchase of item X", because if you buy item X, regardless of what it is, then you pay sales-tax. Simple and straigthforward.

          I'm not saying I agree with this proposal, I'm jsut saying that your objection only suceeds in showcasing your lack of understanding of the issue.

    • Re:Looks like time for (Score:2, Informative)

      by rm-r ( 115254 )
      The idea is no dumber than plenty coming out of the Whitehouse (under either recent president) regarding the Internet. Maybe if you knew a little about the EU you would appreciate that this is just somebody's idea and that it would have to go through the European parliement, the member parliments and all manner of subcommitees before it is enforced- and during this time it will be dropped when it is realised to be unenforcable, checks, measures, etc. are cool, things like the DMCA suggest the Europeans might be ahead here...

      Oh, and when you say the EU should build it's own Internet do you mean GEANT, The Fastest Backbone on Earth? [http] :-)
      • Fair enough. Of course, there's significant concern about the U.S. SSSCA, and that's been proposed by one Congressman (admittedly one bought and paid for by the "intellectual property" industry).

        Often, to use the cliché, it's best to nip these things in the bud.

        Lack of vigilance got us the DMCA here in the U.S. It would probably take a revolution to make that go away now, or at least some significant campaign finance reform.

  • When I take something to "evaluate" at a hardware store, I pay (eventually taxed) money, and if I am not satisfied, I get my (therefore de-taxed) money back.

    Such an act, if actually enforced (something I think is nearly impossible) will essentially kill off the current practice of downloading evaluation versions and paying later.

    And perhaps that was the original intent.
    • You walk into a shop, buy some thing, you pay sales tax.
      You get home, plug it in, it doesn't work, you go back to the shop.
      You give the product back, you get given your money back, including sales tax.

      How is this scenario different? Proper bookeeping is required for dealing with sales tax as the trader. Proper bookkeeping makes it easy to make a refund.

      As for the original intent, don't be silly.
  • If I fly to the US and buy these goods I'm expected to pay VAT on my way back into the EU, this proposal just brings downlaods into line with that. No big deal really (well no more than taxes being levvied at all).

    Good to see the editors not adding any hyperbole or saying that proposals were law or anything! This is still vapourlaw at the moment.

    I wonder if p2p will be classed as tax evasion. I remember customs officials in Poland taxing Free Software imports by perceived value rather than actual cost. Turning up at Heathrow with a holdall full of Brand New US sourced cd's and saying "I was given them" might not quite work either!
  • "The American Chamber of Commerce recently said it feared the proposal would be complex to administer." I could just imagine having to send server logs to accoutants to figure out the taxes we owe to the European Union... "I think that IP is Denmark, are they part of Union? Wait was 29.24.56,,, or 27.23..?" Well maybe the massive bureacracy, will create some jobs for layed off Arthur Anderson accountants, who move to Europe to avoid charges.

  • Hypocracy Abounds (Score:3, Informative)

    by Sentry21 ( 8183 ) on Wednesday February 13, 2002 @04:16PM (#3002354) Journal
    The US and Canada have been at arms with each other about Canada's softwood lumber exports. The US says that the government is subsidizing the mills, that we are 'dumping' our lumber across the border, and so on, so they imposed a 19% countervailing duty on ALL softwood lumber imports from Canada - which, by the way, is causing the unemployment of thousands, just to raise the profits of American mills.

    Canada has taken this issue to the World Trade Organization - twice - and the courts have ruled in Canada's favour both times, and the US totally ignored the rulings and imposed the duties.

    Now the US might be hurt by people paying more for exports, and it wants to go to the WTO. Does anyone else see this as blatant hypocracy?

    --Dan
    • Now the US might be hurt by people paying more for exports, and it wants to go to the WTO. Does anyone else see this as blatant hypocracy?

      Absolutely! The Americans don't understand that FREE Trade means trade that isn't lobsided in favour of the US.
  • How would this work, realistically? What about programs like Go!Zilla that download a file from several sources at once? Will you be charged the tax on each stream, or just on the whole file? How will they know?

    What about interrupted downloads -- a transfer breaks, and you resume the next day... will you be charged twice for the same file?

    I really don't see how this can work very well...
  • This will spur P2P development like nothing else can.

    In the meantime, there might never be a better time to get into the anonymizing proxy business.

    Even offering proxy purchasing services from low tax zones might be atractive to someone out there.

    OK, maybe there isn't a bright side. Once one government tries it, everyone is going to want to play.
  • From the article

    The proposal would deal with the purchase over the internet of virtual goods - sound, music, etc - which you can download

    So they are proposing a tax over commercial transactions, even if there is no physical items purchased. If somebody is making money selling the right to download files, a tax is proposed over that sale.

    Yes, it would be an accountant nightmare and it qould increase the price on a transaction, just like any other tax
  • Oh Boo Freakin' Hoo! We might get less revenue from our friends across the pond. Whatever will we do!

    Yeah -- I really sympathize with that.

    Not that I agree with sales/use/vat/duty taxes anyway, but that's beyind the scope of this rant. Why is it that whenever some sovereign nation decides to tax us (or worse, simply compete in the global market -- steel, lumber, etc.), our gov'ment gets it panties all in a wad, but when we tax and tarrif the hell out of everyone else, it's all fine and dandy?

    Hypocritical scum...

  • This is LUDICROUS! I've downloaded gigabytes of Linux ISO's for free. If I were in Europe, would I then by TAXED on software I can download for free?

    The people who've written this bill have absolutely NO understanding of the internet whatsoever!

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