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Reader Comments (21)

Posted: Feb 25th 2009 5:11PM 343 Guilty Fart said

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You no good dirty finkers!
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Posted: Feb 25th 2009 5:22PM bxgt said

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Do we tax enough shit already, now we have to tax one's and zero's?
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Posted: Feb 25th 2009 6:56PM (Unverified) said

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Have to pay for all the government union members benefits somehow
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Posted: Feb 25th 2009 5:27PM Offensive Bias said

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While I'm not in the mood to pay anymore for my map packs and extra game content, think about the amount of revenue a state gets from software. Now think about how quickly the game's industry is shifting to digital distrubution. An enormous tax stream is drying up without something to replace it. This legislation is just going to bring digital distribution back in line with brick and mortar purchases.
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Posted: Feb 25th 2009 5:30PM Michelobius said

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Except, um, aren't I already paying taxes on downloadable content? I seem to remember paying $10.73 on Flower off the PSN, not $9.99 as it originally said. I guess I don't understand what this bill proposes.
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Posted: Feb 25th 2009 5:32PM Offensive Bias said

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I thought it depended on the state. When I lived in Washington I didn't buy much online content but now in my new state when I bought Half-Life 2 for $49.99 or whatever, that's what was charged to my account.
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Posted: Feb 25th 2009 5:39PM Professor Lario said

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Also think about the gross mismanagement of most state's budgets!
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Posted: Feb 25th 2009 5:41PM Courtney said

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In most states, it depends on whether the retailing online body has a physical presence in the state (a retail store, headquarters, warehouse, etc).

This is very similar to the problem of taxing cross-state internet sales of physical goods. My primary problem with it is that retailers are charged with having to carry the burden of tracking 50 separate state taxing laws and possibly local taxing laws as well. For my business, I only have to comply with one state, and even that gets complicated at times. These attempts to create a nation wide sales tax ignore the cost and manpower necessary to collect the taxes.

While it may be inevitable that such an tax exists, it needs to be coordinated and simplified across all 50 states so that small retailers and software developers are not driven out of online business due to the cost and complexity of compliance.
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Posted: Feb 25th 2009 6:26PM Hotaru99 said

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And those of us who buy things like Point Cards are *already* paying tax at the register
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Posted: Feb 26th 2009 4:14AM (Unverified) said

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Put in a military mailing address and you don't get taxed.
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Posted: Feb 25th 2009 5:39PM Clinton O said

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aw naw this is some BS if it passes, we in a recession right now, now they are trying to make us pay more tryin to increase layoffs . but im glad i finally had a use for the recession.
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Posted: Feb 25th 2009 6:04PM (Unverified) said

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ECA actually stands for Entertainment Consumers Association, rather than Electronic Consumers Association.
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Posted: Feb 25th 2009 6:17PM (Unverified) said

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ignore - corrected now.
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Posted: Feb 25th 2009 6:33PM (Unverified) said

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Hah! This story must be incorrect, we just elected legislators who are looking out for the little people. There's no way they would seek to penalize us, the little people, with more taxes. Someone get on the horn with the King, there's no way a Wii-loving King would allow something like this to happen!
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Posted: Feb 26th 2009 2:15AM (Unverified) said

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Are you lost, kid?
And here I was, pleased to see an adult discussion about taxes going on in the comments above.
News flash: the "little people" don't have consoles, son. There's been 1 current-gen console shipped to the US for roughly every eight people. That's 1 for every 8 Americans, assuming that every single one of them was sold, is still in use, and there is no overlap (only console per household).
Steam has 20 million users. XBox Live - 17 million. PSN - 20 million+. Those are international numbers, by the way. This is a luxurious minority.

So are you seriously whining about paying a few extra dollars to have the luxury of entertainment software sent to your house through wires, millions of bytes a second, and assembled in your home? WAAAH I'm being penalissssed!
Honestly, what a spoiled brat.
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Posted: Feb 26th 2009 4:16AM (Unverified) said

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Since you like paying extra taxes so much, will you pay mine?


Fucking douche
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Posted: Feb 26th 2009 5:33AM (Unverified) said

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I'm afraid that's not how taxes work, lil' Johnny.
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Posted: Feb 26th 2009 5:38AM (Unverified) said

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Besides John, it seems from the above comments that before posting your request, you mentioned a way to cheat the system (unless of course are actually serving your country in the military), so what exactly is your problem, you foul mouthed little freeloader? *tousles hair*
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Posted: Feb 26th 2009 9:47AM (Unverified) said

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Yes, I'm in the military.

I'm also for cheating "the system" since "the system" doesn't seem to give two shits about most people.

And seriously, fuck taxes.
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Posted: Feb 25th 2009 7:00PM PN04 said

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WTF man, I'm already paying tax for Digital Downloads in New York.
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Posted: Feb 25th 2009 9:35PM Frylander said

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I sent in the letter, and was suprised to see a reply the next day in my inbox:

Dear Mr. Fry,

Thank you for your email in opposition to House Bill 2075. I appreciate your thoughts on this issue and will keep your position in mind as the bill moves through the system.

Again, thank you for taking the time to share your position with me.

-Mark
________________________________________________________
State Representative Mark Ericks, 1st District
Ways and Means Committee Vice Chairman
Washington State House of Representatives
John L O'Brien Building, Room 203 |PO Box 40600, Olympia, WA 98504-0600

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