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Governments never stop looking for ways to get more revenue for their pet projects. Here is another example.
Canada has ordered large online streaming services to pay 5 percent of their Canadian revenue to the government in a program expected to raise $200 million per year to support local news and other home-grown content. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) announced its decision yesterday after a public comment period. "Based on the public record, the CRTC is requiring online streaming services to contribute 5 percent of their Canadian revenues to support the Canadian broadcasting system. These obligations will start in the 2024–2025 broadcast year and will provide an estimated $200 million per year in new funding," the regulator said.
No matter where money is being made, government will tax it. Right now the state of California makes more money per gallon of gas than the oil companies. Here, Canada is going to tax these platforms to pay for its pet projects.
Now for now:
The regulations exclude revenue from audiobooks, podcasts, video game services, and user-generated content. The exclusion of revenue from user-generated content is a win for Google's YouTube.
Oh, how generous of the Canadian government.
I don't know how to make this sort of thing stop. In America, I keep thinking that if Congress did its job, it might be better at the Federal level, but let's be honest, local governments are often worse at nickel and diming their citizens. At least in GA any "Special Option Local Sales Tax" has to be voted on, is time-limited, and sometimes doesn't get renewed or gets voted down. So that is something. Usually the government is 110% for them and can use all sorts of tricks. The votes are always with weighted scales. Does not always work. In the Metro area a while back, they pulled out all the stops for a regional tax. The idea was to transfer money. Somehow, people in my county were not interested in their tax dollars being used to build roads in other counties. To try to sweeten the pot, the government removed the tolls on GA 400 that should have been removed as promised previously. The measure still failed.
Never does a government say "Let's spend less," and by that I mean, the individuals in government refuse to spend wisely as they can just tax the People for more and more money. Ultimately, the People need to revolt against this. Personally, I think every single tax, at any level of government, should be put to a vote, requiring an approval of at least 66% of the vote, and with at least 50% of the registered voters participating. Then, and only then, might any new tax be passed. No fees set by regulatory agencies. And all taxes, all of them, automatically expire every 5 years and must be renewed by the same votes.
Pity the People won't demand that.
Discussion (22)
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The people of California have been revolting from their onerous taxes. Those with middle class sensibilities has been moving, and those who occupy the lower echelons are resorting to a cash only transactions where there are no questions asked, or assumed. Listen to Victor David Hanson discuss the "markets" open on weekends near his home in the Central Valley, where everything from building supplies to appliances are sold on a cash only basis, and any labor you wish to have performed at your home can only be accomplished with cash.
It called a black market, and I am sure that the authorities are aware of it, but are unwilling for either ideology, manpower, or just keeping the peace rationale are not enforcing their laws.
At some point, as with all trendy things from California, it will metastasize and spread to the rest of the country.
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The Government Is Running Out Of Money™
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Inflation is worthless. It's always been worthless. Over time they use ridiculous tricks to make it look better than it is. Then all it does is centralized power and generate misallocated capital funded with debt. Then everybody complains about why we have too much debt and nobody can afford anything.
Public goods only. You don't need the government to produce anything except public goods. It has a definition; look it up.
How did they create Medicare and Social Security? They created them at gunpoint. This is great if you run them right. We don't even come close to running them right.` They literally knew this in 1973. Both parties.
Then the genius Ruling Class decided it was a good idea to trade with the Chinese mafia. We could have imported deflation from anywhere else, except these jerks that spend it on military. We just aren't bright enough.
Then we comprehensively did everything wrong if we didn't want Mexican cartels to make $13 billion a year.
It's going to end the hard way.
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Government greedsters are everywhere.
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Exemption for user-generated content...how in the world would this be defined in practice? If twitter pays a royalty to content creators (as it does), what is exempt?...twitter's entire Canadian revenue for those creators, or only the part that twitter keeps? Would Ricochet be exempt since substantially all its content is user-generated?
How many bureaucrats would be necessary to manage this tax system, and how many $CAD in information systems spending, and what % of the tax revenue would these costs scarf up?
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