Prophet or Psychic?
Remember when I foresaw the taxing of Internet pornography two months ago after the sneaky introduction of the $60/year .xxx “virtual red light district”? Well, it looks like it might just become a reality:
“Senator Tom Carper is calling for a tax on all Internet pornography. The Delaware Democrat is proposing a 25 percent tax on the purchase of pornographic material online. The collected tax money would go to a fund to help police prosecute online child pornographers. The provision is part of the Internet Safety and Child Protection Act. In addition to the fund, the bill would require online pornographers to use age-verification software to block children’s access. Carper says the bill will keep kids away from X-rated material.”
So, basically… on top of the amount of tax you already have to pay (%15 in my native province of Quebec, Canada), you will have to pay an extra %25 to purchase it over the Internet. That means that if I wanted to buy a $20 porn film, it will end up costing me $28 over the Internet (not including shipping and handling charges)!!! Are you angry yet? You should be.
The reasoning for the tax seems as sweet as sugar, but the series of events leading up to it (i.e. the new, more expensive and segregated .xxx domains) makes me think otherwise. Although they don’t tell us, I believe the true intent behind the tax is to work on decreasing and possibly even abolishing pornography and the sex industry (remember my post about Sin Tax?). Fundie tax logic is terribly simple minded; morally bad things like churches pornography should be heavily taxed while morally good things like pornography churches should be tax free. Gees, I’m surprised the born-again ‘Christian’ government hasn’t started taxing mosques!
Oh well, a sarcastic thanks goes to the ever-classy Mary Carey and her boss for reminding that born-again ‘Christian’ government what a big industry (and untapped tax resource) that pornography is. After taxing strip clubs and brothels the government definitely needed to find some other morally sound evil industry to tax in order to fund the money pit war in Iraq and help to repay the ever-increasing national debt. Oh well, “Give Caesar what belongs to Caesar”… and all that crap.
April 9th, 2006 at 2:55 pm
Great article. I am just sad I dont know how to reply properly, though, since I want to show my appreciation like many other.