I wish Netflix would man up when these kinds of extortions show up.<p>Just imagine telling "Fine, we're out. Enjoy telling your city why they can no longer have Netflix".
I'm always curious how taxes like this are enforced, presumably the City of Chicago can just sue companies like Netflix and Spotify if they think they're not getting their share. If I have my own small-time video streaming business does that mean I have to worry potentially about any municipality coming after me for unpaid taxes? That could get a little nuts if there are thousands of cities that could potentially have ordinances like this. How do I keep up? Am I just not understanding the scope of this?
They're pretending Chicago's 2015 budget shortfall is $300 million instead of $850 million because they're ignoring the $550 million they owe to police and fireman pensions; putting that off until October.<p>The expected-to-raise $12 million "cloud tax" will cover 4% instead of 1.4%. So that's good news...<p><a href="http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20140801/NEWS02/140739943/emanuels-2015-budget-puts-off-pension-crisis-for-now" rel="nofollow">http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20140801/NEWS02/14073...</a>
Does Netflix even have a physical presence in Chicago? How would the city be able to compel Netflix to pay otherwise? I'm thinking about how I paid no sales tax for Amazon purchases until Amazon opened a warehouse in my state.
If used widely, wouldn't this basically kill every software startup? A new startup with, say, 10,000 users can't possibly afford to file hundreds of pages of tax paperwork in each of 2,000 separate local jurisdictions.
Nothing spurs local businesses and high-tech innovation like absurd taxes and regulation.<p>Chicago just got nixed from my "potential non-SV startup locales" list.
With Chicago's famous history as a bastion of innovation in corruption, this doesn't really surprise me at all. Those pockets need filling, people, and who better to squeeze for cash than those silly Internet businesses? They aren't even real!