(Character depicted looks like comic relief from 'Blazing Saddles')New York Governor David Paterson has proposed a tax on internet downloads, a spokesman said Monday, in a move that has raised eyebrows because it could apply to everything from software to pornography.
The four per cent tax would apply to downloads of music, software, books, videos and other Internet content, a spokesman for Paterson said.
"It is a general proposal, not focused on the content, so it would apply to any download, regardless of the content," said Errol Cockfield.
The governor has floated the idea as a way of closing the state's $US15 billion ($A23 billion)budget deficit, but critics say the proposal would likely apply to the hugely lucrative Internet pornography industry and could even drive business away from the state.
"By taxing it you're legitimising it," New York Conservative Party Chairman Michael Long told the New York Daily News.
Around 20 US states have begun to apply a tax to downloads such as music on iTunes, and similar measures are being mulled in Mississippi, North Dakota and Wisconsin.
AFP 17 Feb 2009
A sign of the times of what may happen in Australia. Just another form of slavery. Big business chiefs in the background.
What we also have here is a disturbing trend that Governments run up deficits and have run out of ideas to tax people legitimately, so they make up RULES that ultimately the people pay for.
The guy looks like a muppet. i.e someone else is steering him.
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