New Jersey residents have been hit by their government with a 7% tax on iTunes downloads (as well as other music download services such as Napster) this past week.
The sales tax overall was raised from 6 to 7% in order to help the state fight their $4.5-billion deficit.
Many are speculating that other states will follow New Jersey’s lead and introduce their own sales tax on music and movies downloads.
I guess I don’t really see anything really wrong with this. I have never bought music from iTunes. And there’s really no good reason not to tax it like anything else, other than just not liking taxes in general.
At least the people the Governor is pissing off with this move is bound to be primarily from a demographic that is known for not voting.
[Via taxalicious, via CNET News.blog]
Valid observation – but does he really want to anger them into voting against him?
Secondly, wonder what the demographics of iTunes really are? I’d figure the ‘kiddies’ would use torrents to get their music and only the older folks would actually pay.
Way to encourage the black market, NJ!
Yeah that’s true. I don’t know anyone my age or otherwise that uses iTunes. I was just assuming it was the cool 20-somethings and teens.