Italian Lawmakers to Consider Porn Tax

[edbermac]

Oh my GAWD!!! What the HELL is happening in this world??? :cry:

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/12/08/D8EC6T4O4.html

ROME - Italians would have to pay a 20 percent tax on pornography according to a budget amendment that cleared a first legislative hurdle, news reports said Thursday. The proposed tax was approved at committee level and is expected to go before the Chamber of Deputies, Italy's lower parliamentary house, early next week.

The tax is expected to raise about euro220 million (US$260 million) to help reduce the national deficit and to help fund government tax breaks to families.

"I believe the porn tax is important not for moralistic reasons, which don't concern me, but because I think that at a time of difficult economic conditions for families it is right to tax products that are not essential," lawmaker Daniela Santache was quoted as saying by the ANSA news agency.

[antigone382]

1. I don't have a problem with a tax...though 20% seems a little steep.

It's one of the most lucrative industries in the world, why shouldn't it be taxed?

[mongo]

2. Here in America it would be unconstitutional

to impose a tax based on the content of speech.

[Hugin]

3. True...

It's subjective as to what content is porn.

Such legislation is akin to writing oneself a blank check.

[antigone382]

4. Well, yeah, I guess you're right...

I didn't think about it that way...I wonder just how the Italians would define porn, if they were to enact this proposal, and where they would draw the line. Despite my ancestry (half Italian), I don't know much about the government over there, except that it seems to be extraordinarily corrupt a lot of the time (particularly Berlusconi).