New York dropping its plans to tax DLC

Back in December, Governer Paterson had unveiled a new tax proposal that had a section entitled “Close Digital Property Taxation Loophole” in it. Detailed in there were plans for taxing a number of digitally distributed items, ranging from iTunes songs to Halo map packs in order to “achieve tax parity.”

The tax would mainly affect those buying items on the Wii or 360, as the PlayStation Network already charges sales tax for their purchases. The new budget was going to try and help close New York’s defecit by about $1.3 billion dollars, according to the governer. But, New Yorkers almost universally rejected it, saying that it was inconvenient and frustrating.

The reason for the proposition dropping was because of the recently passed stimulus bill. Not only did it supply a lot of money, part of the requirement was that the state try and help encourage people to spend money. As such, deciding not to tax DLC and all the other items entailed in the section was supposed to help encourage spending for consumers.

I’m glad to see that the bill has saved a lot of people money, because adding another 8% or so to the general cost of DLC would make it painful for some people, I can attest to that.

[Via Kotaku]