Opinion
iPod tax hits the right track
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Also by Jack Garigliano:
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You've seen them. Maybe you're one of them. Hundreds of students shuffling along to class with iPod headphones crammed into their ears. With no patience to think their own thoughts or at least enjoy the scenery, these people allow the bland mind-numbing crooning the Fray or the inane unimaginative drivel of Panic! At the Disco to manipulate their shallow emotions. State Representative Scott Suder, R-Abbotsford, has recently targeted these gaping masses with irrelevant, manipulative statements designed to drive them into outraged support of his cause.
Mr. Suder takes issue with Gov. Doyle's proposed sales tax revision. This proposal would extend Wisconsin's 5 percent sales tax to include all electronically purchased digital media, such as movies and music from iTunes, a popular music service that works exclusively with the iPod. Rep. Suder took these two degrees of separation from the omnipresent iPod and dubbed Doyle's proposal the "iPod tax."
In an interview with The Badger Herald, Mr. Suder asks, "Why are we out to punish people who are out to download music?" I would counter, "Why are we asking rhetorical questions that make our opponents seem like cruel slave drivers?" Using the word "punish" to describe paying a standard 5 percent tax seems a little extreme, but Suder knows exactly what he's doing. By victimizing "people who are out to download music," Suder hopes they will feel oppressed enough to, in his words, "speak out on this issue" and (not in his words) join in his bitter distaste for taxation. Paying extra for a luxury item to help your state pay for your education, your law enforcement and your health care is hardly the definition of punishment.
In fact, were it not for implementation problems, the Internet sales tax would be a decent proposal. The public views digital media as more of a commodity than before; the music industry is taking greater steps toward eliminating piracy — though their success is at best minimal — and some popular file-sharing networks have recently offered the option to legally pay for higher-quality files. However, buying these commodities online involves not buying them with the sales tax at your local store. A government struggling to pay a deficit should certainly try to recoup these losses for both itself and the shunned businesses.
The Badger Herald Editorial Board stated several objections to this proposal last Monday. The editorial vaguely asserted that taxing a still-developing marketplace would somehow stunt its growth. I fail to see how. While entrepreneurship can be hindered by taxes and higher prices, digital products already have an advantage over physical goods in terms of transportation and packaging costs; businesses are cheaper to run without chunks of plastic and cardboard and large bulky vans, even with a sales tax.
The Board also worries that the tax would reverse the slow but steady trend toward purchased, legal downloads, as opposed to illegal downloading and piracy. As applied economic professor Andrew Reschovsky told The Badger Herald, the state tax would raise the cost of music downloads by mere cents and probably not affect people's downloading habits. Also, I doubt an extra 5 percent would sway anyone who already chooses payment over free file sharing.
This bill's only major obstacle, which the Board correctly identified, is implementation. Until the Department of Revenue finds a way to keep track of downloads or make people accurately remember and report all their purchases, the proposed tax extension may very well be impractical.
Rep. Suder ignores these complexities and deviously coins the phrase iPod tax, rehashing the issue into one he hopes will appeal to his constituents' emotions and greed. Since Mr. Suder is satisfied reducing the argument to one small aspect of the whole, I shall refute him at his level. I think an iPod tax is a great idea. Our society has reached a point where we pay to have something occupy our own thoughts for us. We can afford to consume expensive electronic plastics that filter our senses' input until we wallow in a stagnant, filtered cesspool of pop music. We are passively entertained by professionals even while we walk two blocks to buy pet rocks. The iPod is a flamboyant luxury item; it represents the pinnacle of obscene consumerism. I say, Mr. Suder, tax it. Tax the hell out of it.
Jack Garigliano (garigliano@wisc.edu) is a freshman majoring in English.
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IP hash: 1c564523
hey, don’t call it the ipod tax if it’s not taxing iPods, Suder. That man is such an idiot.
However, taxing digital media: good idea. Just download it illegally anyway, teach the industry (not electronics, but the Music and Movies) a thing or two - stop putting out bad products.
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Ashok Kumar, are you going to tax us?
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Freshman, shit, do you even think before you write? 5 cents on a iTune is one thing, but $75 on a $1500 television is another.
The internet is the greatest phenomenon in free market economics since Adam Smith sold a fart for a song.
Jack, the invisible hand is stronger than you know.
IP hash: 74f6f07a
If you cant pay an extra 5 cents on a $1 song you probably shouldnt be buying the song anyway
IP hash: 5eb37da5
… how would you be able to use a sales tax on purchases of things that aren’t in the state? i didn’t know itunes set up shop solely in the wisconsin area. it’d be an excise tax if anything. oh, and i’m glad that i’m thoughtless because i listen to music on the way to class. thanks for pointing out the fallacy of listening to anything but the shitty pretentious indie rock you’ve listed in your facebook.
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The issue of levying and collecting State sales tax on purchases of digital media is one worth discussing - but I doubt that identifying the consumers of such media as dull-witted cretins is going to improve the quality of the discussion.
How does the reporter know that people listening to iPods have “no patience to think their own thoughts?” Could he cite his source for that statement?
IP hash: 34f51f46
We should pay Wisconsin sales tax on stuff we buy on vacation in Florida too. Thanks for pointing out this heinous underpayment of my patriotic tax responsibility. Who should I write the check to? Special interest __.
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Jack, although I don’t necessarily agree with your position, I do applaud you on your style. Great writing!
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Good article, yet I couldn’t disagree with you any more if I tried. Just because a person enjoys walking while listening to music doesn’t prove that they are thoughtless, shallow creatures. There are many other senseless, nonsense products that portray consumerism more than the ipod. Taxing songs on iTunes is incredibly unfair, and I don’t know about you Jack, but I could do without calculating iTunes downloads on my next W2.
IP hash: 34f51f46
iPods are necessary for those of us “cool enough” to need a sountrack for our everyday lives. I sometimes walk in slow-motion and pretend there is an exploding vehicle behind me.
Ask me if I look at the exploding car… No way, I’m too cool.
-Mr. Pink?
IP hash: 8b917486
Apple already collects the taxes and remits them to the state voluntarily, so Doyle’s initatitve actually wouldn’t change a thing for iTunes users.
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‘Paying extra for a luxury item to help your state pay for your education, your law enforcement and your health care is hardly the definition of punishment.’
Thats exactly the type of thinking that has allowed Wisconsin to become such a highly taxed state. Just paying this little tax here, for a certain benefit or service. All of the ‘little’ taxes add up to the tax situation we have now in this state.
Although I would have to conceed that of ALL of the tax proposals that Doyle has this would be one of the last to pick on. Taxing hospitals and retirement homes while health care costs are already soaring? are you serious doyle?
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I couldn’t disagree more. You accuse Suder of dumbing-down his point by using the word “punish.” You’re guilty of the same crap by saying that the only purposes of taxes are to help “pay for your education, your law enforcement, and your health care.” The purpose of government, friend, is not to help you out. The purpose of government is to serve it’s own ends, ensure the life of it’s own programs, and make sure people continue to lean on it so that it never goes away. This is just another example of big government trying to stick it’s hands in every little thing, expand itself, and essentially take away a personal freedom (albeit a small one) and once it’s gone it don’t come back.
Keep letting the government walk all over you, and keep justifying it by saying they’re “helping” you. Just don’t come crying to me when you’re wondering where all of your money went when you get that next paycheck.
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It’s thinking like this that has raised our gas tax so damn high compared to the national average. Basically thinking from a bunch of poor liberals who are jealous of the wealth of others and want to get even with them by taxing them so heavily.