Texas Senator Proposes Taxing Games

[wraggster]

While the rest of the government seems concerned with finding a way to censor videogames, The Brownsville Herald has picked up on Senator Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa of Texas District 20 announcing plans to propose a tax placed on videogame sales to the state's Senate Finance Committee this weekend.
The Democrat intends to use revenue generated from the tax towards building new schools and upgrading poorer ones. "You have all these kids buying video games, and sometimes they are good, some are bad and that's not my call," he said to the paper. "But I think that we can generate [money] to put toward the schools they go to."

Hinojosa's proposal predicts the state would pick up about $65 million from the tax, but does little to explain what makes videogames so special. Music, movies and other forms of entertainment don't have a specific tax, but because videogames are in the legislative spotlight these days, it must be hip to propose something game-related.

via 1up

[Kaiser]

Wow, i don't even know what to say to this.

[DCDayDreamer]

It's all politics, they need to generate money so a tax is imposed, I'm just sick of them using children as an excuse all the time!. Every time someone proposes a tax like that, the general public should take out a lawsuit against them for exploitation!.

[shadowprophet]

I would have some smart assed comment about this. And then come back with a rather lingthly follow up about how messed up that is.

But no.

Now im getting the feeling these guys pass these ignorant bills, just to witness shadowprophet in full rage



What



I do not have a God complex!! Now Bow before me mortals!!




Seriously tho. taxing videogames?!
I mean arnt they already taxed when you buy them


Damn,
Hey I got an idea. Why dont we start taxing politicians

I mean its the least they could do, is pay us to have to put up with there stupid bull$#@!.

[dragaron]

Seriously tho. taxing videogames?!
I mean arnt they already taxed when you buy them

True, that's what I don't get. Will this be a second tax or what?

[Vegetable]

Hey dumbasses, did you ever think that this tax might be a good thing? Little Johnny GTA's money won't just be going to violent video games anymore, it'll be going to good schools as well.

So quick to pass the Government as the bad guys.

[Hungry Horace]

sorry Vegetable.... but it *is* bulls*t.

as the post already well points out, how can you propse a tax on one entertainment media (games) and not on another (movies) - it's outright discrimination.

i'm glad i live in Europe, people would get up in arms about his one over here... straight to Brussels and the court of Human Rights.

No ones questioning that more money for schools shouldnt happen, of course thats a good thing... but its the means to the end. Its not as if customers arent already being shafted by games prices as it is, with manufacting and production cost being next to nothing, but retail price and in-store profit being very very high.

a tax on games and other media might work if the tax is imposed on on those people who are making the most money out of it. Tax the retailers who not only have massive mark-ups on prices but are also probably selling games to under-age patrons, just for a quick buck (it always surprises me how many youngsters play GTA) - or heaven forbid - tax some of the games company big-wigs sitting in their offices rolling in money made from the latest dungeon-crawler, GTA clone of OutRun spinoff.... the schools deserve the money, but at the expense of purely games-consumers? its no wonder capitalism f**ks me off at times.

rant over.

[mog]

Haha, and i thought most of britain's new laws from the EU were stupid... this is just a clever way to tax under 18's aswell as adults! Why not just raise tax for adult's instead? unless they are trying to make it look like tax isnt going up?

Also, why only video games? why not kids clothing, kids bikes, and everything else?
And it's not only kids that play video games. How about all the single people, with no kids that enjoy computer games?
Why are they paying more towards schools just because they like computer games?

Lol, this law is stupid!
For some reason, they must think the more video games that are sold, the more money schools are going to need... how does that make any sense?

[John Vattic]

Sounds descriminatory. Why not tax movies more. Some are good and others can suck. And every complacent cow in the herd in America ritualizes the consumption of movies.
Extortion of a single demographic is criminal and, well, as i said descriminatory.

[dkjr83]

Well, I live in Texas and just finished a graduate course on domestic public policy (a lot of it regarding school financing in Texas specifically), so I can tell you that Texas schools are in desperate need of a better financing system. They're looking at a lot of things; increasing cigarette taxes, changing business taxes (right now Texas is one of the best places to start a small business), and re-working property taxes.

Regardless of whether or not this happens, taxes are going to increase on the whole, and depending on where you fall on the political spectrum, this may or may not be a good thing. Pretty much everyone agrees that there are a few rich schools and a lot of poor ones, and the educational attainment level in general in suffering because of it. I have my own personal political philosophy about this, and this philosophy leads me to disagree with big government intervention.

Having said all that,
Taxing video games in just one state is probably a bad idea. If it were done on a national level it might drive base costs down. The market reacts to taxation just like any other stimuli, but when it happens in just one state (with something like video games; a worldwide industry), this isn't likely to happen. Most of the taxes of this type are referred to as "sin" taxes, and they're applied to alcohol, tobacco, etc. To include video games in that same category is both insulting and ignorant, and I know this particular politician is, for lack of a better term, an idiot.

Thank God my wife and I are moving out of this redneck state as soon as I graduate.