Re: Re: property tax?

Valuation would seem easy.

expected life of the author + 70 years = no of years of income stream in the primary term and on renewal another 70 years

say the life expectancy is 40 + 70 + 70 = 180 years of income

discount that at current interest rates use LIBOR each year reduce the number of years by one

  so if the income stream is 100000 per year  the net present value discounted at 5% would be 2 million   if the tax rate were $.020 X 2M = $40K per year taxes on   income streams of $100K about what the corporate tax rate is.

but a question in taxes, the copyright monopoly is a fed monopoly, hence it would be challengable whether the states had a right to tax it all, and the tax, if any, would have to be a federal tax, so would it take an act of congress. Further if the revenues are considered to be from an export of a license then there might be a constitutional prohibition on the excise tax on an export.

Wonder how the tax revenues on a copyright would compare with the revenues on gasoline at the gas pump?

I am no lawyer, but there are many questions.

sterling

On Wed, 19 Nov 2003, Agenbroad, James (Civ,ARL/CISD) wrote:

>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Edward Barrow [mailto:edward[_at_]copyweb.co.uk]
> Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2003 11:10 AM
> To: CNI-COPYRIGHT -- Copyright & Intellectual Property
> Subject: [CNI-(C)] Re: property tax?
>
>
> On Tue, 2003-11-18 at 20:02, JQ Johnson wrote:
> > It seems that an overall trend in IP law is to treat IP as "property",
> > analogous to real property. This made me consider what is presumably
> > a bogus but interesting question.
> >
> > Are there any jurisdictions, either US or elsewhere, where this is
> > taken to the next step and copyright is taxed as property?
> >
> First question, how do you value it? Property taxes can be assessed on acreage, but usually on either a capital value or a notional rent.
>
> ----->or vice versa, In Medieval England, land was sometimes "measured" in librates, the amount of land than generates £1 in rents a year.
>
>
> There's a much less well established market in IP assets to measure it fairly.
>
> ----->I would argue that it's not the lack of a market, (after all, book and record deals are signed every day) but the lack of taxes that explain the lack of comprehensive valuation in IP.
>
> Generally, royalties earned from IP assets are taxable income, so IP is already taxed in most jurisdictions.
>
> ----->The income generated is taxed, not the capital asset. (at least that I know of) My original point was simply that it seems strange to get into some high moral outrage about the government seizing ones (intellectual)property since they will also sieze one's (real or personal) property, and if one amortizes out the value of the property over the years for which copyright is enforced, it is equivalent to a not very onerous tax.
>
>
Received on Thu Nov 20 2003 - 21:30:32 GMT