| Reason.com offers a nationwide roundup on (mostly stillborn) efforts at the state level to levy a sin tax on video games. Some proposals aim to tax only violent games (who knows it if would affect the forthcoming adaptation of Dante’s Inferno, in which sinners are the exclusive targets of horrific violence). Seriously, though, one can see the populist appeal of Louisiana’s “No Child Left Indoors” proposal, which would impose a 1 percent tax on video game equipment and televisions to fund outdoor recreation facilities. [%comments]
A Sin Tax on Video Games
TAGS: entertainment, taxes
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50 years ago children played outside a lot more, because…. the government taxed them into it and forced them to exercise at school and gave them dinky hand outs at school? No. They played because they wanted to, because it was fun, even though their mother was yelling “don’t muddy up your clothes!”
The more the government pushes against video games the more children will resent the government and authority and the more video games will seem like *their* thing and excertise and playing outside as some sort of boring conformist chore.
In moderation video games have a lot of positive affects, and as for the addiction to electronic entertainment we see, I think blaming the video games would be like blaming attractive women for infidelity. Are the video games too fun and too cheap or are the social ties and responcibilities not taken seriously enough?
When I was 11 I spent all day inside playing video games because my single mother didn’t have time to take me elsewhere and I was bullied by my peers. Making the video games more expensive and making new shiny government areas for me to be harassed wouldn’t have helped.
I have a real problem with an industry being taxed to fund its competition. If the alternative is that valued it should be able to stand on its own or be funded by the people who value it.
The whole concept of sin taxes is moving precariously close to imposing fees targeted to any sort of behaviors that are either popular, and thus prime revenue generators, or that affect a narrow segment of the population, hopefully too small or powerless to object.
If the idea is to influence and change the attitudes and activities of select groups because what they do negatively impacts the common good, why not be more open and transparent about both the problem and the expected solution?
This is more likely a blatant attempt to drum up dollars on the backs of folks of a certain hobby. Anytime the welfare of children are pulled into the discussion, you know proponents are losing the battle and have resorted to playing the “kid” card, because there’s no other way for them to convince others that their idea has merit.
A 1% tax pushes the cost of a video game from $59.99 to $60.59. If this were implemented, there’s no way that children would even be aware of it. Big box retailers would almost certainly lower the price back to $59.99 and eat the 60 cents themselves.
I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t care whether this gets passed or not. I’m slightly opposed to it, but there are bigger fish to fry in the universe of taxation.
Completely agree, Alex. A tax on things that politicians arbitrarily see as undesirable is an affront to free speech.
Idiotic.
I’ll leave it at that.
While I’m all for the idea of getting children to partake in activities that foster better overall education, I’m not sure taxing video games is the key.
First of all, a 1% tax on video games is so small that I doubt it would deter people from purchasing them. Also, my guess is that TV is a bigger hindrance than video games are, and that TV is a substitute for video games. (And, in this sense, it is an even worse substitute – I argue that even non-educational video games generally ‘teach’ more in terms of strategy and spatial awareness than non-educational television).
That said, if one considers this solely as a means to raise revenue to fund better recreation facilities, then I imagine that might work. But I would expect the greatest part of success in the program to come from the use of the funds, not the application of a tax.
How about a “sin” tax on all political campaign contributions? It could be used to fund a special unit of investigators and attorneys charged to seek out and prosecute ethics violations in Congress?