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Chicago has responded to declining taxable retail sales, and to the rise of online purchases, by adding a 9% 'cloud tax'. Users of Netflix, Amazon Web Services, Spotify, etc..., will now be billed a 9% tax based on their IP address or street address.
"...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.
"As The Verge explains, the new tax is actually a pair of rules put together. One covers “electronically delivered amusements” and the other, “nonpossessory computer leases.” The former targets your streaming video and radio sites, and the latter is meant to cover remote computing platforms like Amazon Web Services.
The rules take existing tax law and extend them to add another 9% onto the cost of using those services from a Chicago address — so that $8.99 Netflix subscription is $9.80 for an unfortunate Chicagoan.
The web services businesses, of course, can avoid this tax entirely (and probably get lower rents) by moving out of the city limits entirely. Consumers subscribing to streaming services have fewer ways out, since the tax could be based both on their billing address and also on the IP addresses to which content is streamed."
Tax residents more and drive internet businesses out of Chicago.
In the South, the freedom and confederate loving conservative states of Georgia and Alabama (with Republican supermajorities) are on a tax raising tear. So much for "No more taxes!"
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