Chicago Residents Now Stuck With A New 9% “Cloud Tax” On Netflix And Other Streaming Services
July 2, 2015
Grazed from Consumerist. Author: Kate Cox.
There used to be a whole world of brick-and-mortar retail stores and transactions a city could gather some sales tax from and build into a revenue stream. As more and more goods instead become online services, though, those streams have dried up. Now one city wants to go back to gathering its cash… from your transactions in the cloud.
The Verge reports that residents of the Windy City are about to have to start paying a premium on Netflix and their other streaming services, as a new “cloud tax” takes effect in Chicago today. The logic goes something like this: In the long-gone ancient era of “twenty whole years ago,” when you went down to your corner video store for some rentals and some popcorn, you’d leave a few cents of sales tax behind with your purchase…
Those nickels and pennies added up, and your town, city, or county got some revenue out of it. But now, you’re streaming all your media, not buying it, and as a result there’s no sales tax going anywhere. Worse: record stores, video stores, and bookstores are in large part going the way of the dodo, and cities can’t collect business or property taxes on businesses that don’t exist. So this, then, is Chicago’s attempt to recoup some of those losses…
Read more from the source @ http://consumerist.com/2015/07/01/chicago-residents-now-stuck-with-a-new-9-cloud-tax-on-netflix-and-other-streaming-services/