juschry flemming karlee
Agata Schweiss
Now the problem: in HBO and YouTube the state changes immediately when I press pause or stop on my phone. The playback in Chromecast is paused or stopped and my lights turn on as they should (or dim when I press play). But with Netlix this is not working so smooth. Sometimes the status changes, sometimes not.
Could you please check it on you end and let me know? The question is whether the state changes in HA when you play or pause the playback or not and whether it works ocasionally as in my case or always and immediately.
Subscribers to Netflix in Florida will begin seeing a state tax on their monthly bill. The tax itself is not new and it is not clear why Netflix has only now begun to tack the tax onto subscriber's monthly charges.
The tax dates back to 2001 on cell phone service and satellite and cable TV subscriptions. As technologies have evolved, so has the services lawmakers include in the tax. In 2012, cable service was redefined as video service. That extended the tax to include both audio and video streaming services.
Amazon includes a page describing the Florida tax on its website. "The Florida Department of Revenue has advised Amazon that video rentals are included in the definition of video services. This means some benefits of Amazon Prime may also be subject to CST. As a result, CST will be proportionately applied to Prime for its taxable services," the page says.
"The Department audits businesses to find out whether state taxes were collected, reported, and paid correctly," a revenue department spokesperson wrote when WLRN asked how the state determines if a company is in compliance with the state tax.
The state portion of the tax is 5.07%. "The Florida communications services tax must be separately itemized on the customer billing," according to the state revenue department's website. Companies may not "absorb or relieve the customer of all or any part of the Florida communications services tax."
The tax has helped drive state revenues. It brought in almost $700 million last fiscal year. The tax revenue category that includes streaming media services has grown by double digits seven years in a row. State budget estimators anticipate that growth to slow to under 10% this fiscal year.
Your monthly bill for Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and other streaming entertainment services could go up soon as states such as Illinois try to find ways to offset declining sales taxes and other revenue shortfalls. Chicago, Pennsylvania and Florida have already passed a so-called Netflix tax, and cities such as Pasadena, Calif. have broached the issue.
Netflix, consumer tax groups and tech trade organizations have voiced their opposition to such taxes, warning they can be unfair and deter innovation. Some opponents have initiated legal challenges, and at least one state has shelved plans after a court decision. But state and local governments aren't likely to halt fresh efforts as falling pay-TV subscriptions and video rentals mean there's less opportunity to tax cable bills or charge sales tax at the cash register.
Sales tax revenue last year grew less than 1%, after accounting for inflation, and states are facing slow growth into 2018, according to the Rockefeller Institute of Government at the State University of New York.
"When you see the sales tax base dwindling like this, it is understandable for lawmakers to get together and say, 'Is there a way that we can expand this?'" said John Buhl of the Tax Foundation, a non-partisan think tank.
States including Alabama, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine and West Virginia have considered taxes on streaming and digital entertainment. Those that have already passed so-called Netflix taxes give a sense of the fees facing consumers.
Chicago amended its 9% amusement tax, originally written to tax concert and sporting event tickets, in 2015 to apply to Netflix and other streaming entertainment, including online game networks. For a typical Netflix or Spotify subscriber with a $9.99 monthly plan, that translates to an additional 90 cents per month or $10.79 for the year.
Pennsylvania in August 2016 expanded its 6% sales tax to include streaming services, as well as downloads of apps, movies, music, games and e-books. So, when Apple or Amazon sells a $13.99 ebook to a Pennsylvania resident, the seller must include an 84 cent tax. The state has collected about $46.9 million in the first 10 months of the tax.
Kentucky began taxing Netflix in 2015, comparing it to a multichannel video programming service such as traditional pay TV. But the state's tax appeals board nullified the attempt, saying the service was not equivalent to a traditional pay-TV service. That decision was subsequently reaffirmed by the state court.
States are increasingly looking to raise revenue, but these efforts must be both lawful and not discriminate against any one sector," said Dustin Brighton, vice president of state government affairs for the Internet Association.
Some new tax efforts would seek voter approval, but many result from adapting current laws to cover streaming services and digital goods. Lawmakers that have fought them say while revenues may be bolstered, they can backfire on local governments.
While in the Pennsylvania House, Republican Mike Regan, now a state senator, voted against the law, despite the state's $1.3 billion deficit. He considered it "a tax on millennials" and "short-sighted" because it could dissuade companies that might locate in the state.
Taxpayers and legislators voiced opposition last year when the city of Pasadena discussed applying its city utility user taxes on Net-delivered services such as Netflix. In Pasadena, that would have meant a 9% tax.
Legal challengers to streaming taxes say federal law that prohibits a tax on e-commerce that discriminates against online providers means some of these municipal efforts should be halted. Earlier this year, the Entertainment Software Association, an industry trade group representing video game hardware makers and software publishers, filed a suit challenging the Chicago law, citing the Internet Tax Freedom Act.
Internet taxation became an issue two months ago when President Trump tweeted about Amazon, founded by Jeff Bezos, and The Washington Post, which Bezos paid $250 million for four years ago, accusing "The #AmazonWashingtonPost" of not paying "internet taxes."
Yet state and local governments, wrestling with slipping tax revenues, recognize many digital sales go un-taxed. As retail tax bases shrink and with more consumers buying online and purchasing digital goods, more states are likely to debate a streaming tax.
"We are at the very beginning of a trend where local governments begin evaluating their policy vis vis digital taxation," said Stephen Kranz, an attorney with McDermott Will & Emery, a Washington-based law firm handling the Entertainment Software Association's case.
The number of Americans who say they watch cable or satellite television plunged from 76% in 2015 to 56% in 2021, according to a Pew Research Center survey of U.S. adults. (The Pew Charitable Trusts funds the center and Stateline.) Of those cord-cutters, 71% say they dropped their cable or satellite service because they can get the content they want via streaming services.
To replace the lost revenue, at least 33 of the 45 states with a general sales tax (plus the District of Columbia) have folded streaming services into their existing sales tax structures, according to the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of two, nonpartisan Washington, D.C., think tanks. These states tax subscriptions to digital streaming services the same way they slap a sales tax on tickets to movies or concerts.
Gandurski said in a phone interview that when the discussion began in June 2020 about expanding the amusement tax, the thinking was at the time that the city was predicted to lose a substantial amount of entertainment tax due to COVID. We could align with Chicago and recoup some of the revenue lost due to COVID.
Customers who cut the cord to consume their video through streaming services still rely on fiber-optic cable that lies beneath city streets to connect them to the internet. Because streaming services use that broadband infrastructure, many cities argue, they should pay the franchise fees that cable companies pay.
Cities and towns in at least 13 states have sued streaming video giants Netflix and Hulu seeking compensation. Georgia, Indiana and Missouri cities have won preliminary legal victories, but judges dismissed similar lawsuits in Arkansas, California, Nevada and Texas.
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