I received this email the other day from Amazon Associate Program.

I read on the Performance Marketing website is that the bill specifically targeting digital assets has died. BUT, the tax has been moved into the larger behemoth general budget bill and is buried somewhere. I went to the NC Legislature website and tried to find it but no luck.

Now I don’t get a lot of money from the Amazon Associates Program. I may make a buck or two. But any legislation around digital properties or the webs makes me uncomfortable. It’s just like being told to eat everything on your plate even if your full. It doesn’t make sense.

I know most of the downloads means music. Here’s a great quote from the folks over in Kentucky who have similar legislation afoot: “Music is included because music downloads fit the definition of personal property,” said Jill Midkiff, a spokeswoman for the Kentucky Department of Revenue.

Really? So this whole time I’ve been buying stuff from iTunes with that redonkulous protection code thingy preventing me from using my property as I see fit and it’s been mine all along?! Does the RIAA know about this? Cuz they been saying it’s their property and I just RENT it.

I’ve always thought taxes were assessed to support the infrastructure of my local, state and/or federal governments. As far as I know, my local, state and federal governments already get a piece of the action. The few pennies I get for click-thru ad referrals already are taxed at the source of the product, i.e., Amazon pays property taxes and collects sales tax on the item at point of sale. And for non-physical items such as downloads, the company that has the source on its servers pays property taxes along with a nice batch of local and federal taxes on the hardware they access the internet through–phone, coax, fiber, etc.

Anybody else think this is redundant taxation and we should be having a tea party ala Boston?!