Title: Should streaming services be taxed? Category: Health & Wellness Tags: streaming tax, Netflix tax, entertainment tax Teaser: How important is streaming video to you? Is it worth a 9.4 percent tax grab? Article: For most people, streaming is a relatively cheap form of entertainment. But now, some cities throughout the U.S. are calling streaming a utility — like water and electricity — meaning they want to tax it. So, whether you’re binge-watching “The Good Wife,” or “Game of Thrones,” you should ask yourself, are you willing to pay the tax? Dozens of California cities looking for a tax grab on streaming services Just when you’ve ditched the high price of cable and moved over to streaming video, here comes a proposed “Netflix tax.” …show more content…
Not in my book. But to many public officials the move is justified. They argue that cities are losing money due to the removal of cable and phone services from many households. It’s unfair, suggest officials, that people who get their video through cable television are taxed while those who stream don’t. For Pasadena, the move seems to come about after voters modernized a law to tax cellphones — like landlines — in 2008. But residents probably didn’t anticipate that it could be applied to streaming. Forty-one California cities now have the same laws according to CBS …show more content…
And that tax grab is reported to bring in a cool $47 million in 2016-17 suggests PennLive. Are you ready to be taxed? In my humble opinion, 9.4 percent tax is too high, particularly for those people who subscribe to many apps and streaming services. Implementing such a tax might mean subscribers now have to pick and choose services, and that would result in lower revenues for some streaming providers. Providers, therefore, may have to reduce prices to accommodate the new tax, or risk losing their audience. Time will tell. On one hand, you can certainly understand why cash-strapped cities are moving towards implementing Netflix taxes. But for many, these streaming services are more than just entertainment. Streaming video content online is fast becoming the most accessible way to devour entertainment. We’re increasingly becoming a civilization engrossed in uninterrupted (unhealthy) periods of “binge-watching” television. But, good or bad, streaming video is here to stay. We know it, big business knows it and the U.S. government surely knows it. Therefore, there’s a good chance this entertainment/utility tax is also here to