Of course, as many emotional “smartphone tax” comes into force. The Ministry of Culture and National Heritage launched a public consultation on the amendment of the provisions on the reprographic fee.
The revised reprographic fee, commonly referred to as "smartphone tax", is intended to cover modern devices specified as smartphones, tablets or televisions. The Ministry argues that the change will not hit consumers, and will increase the revenues for artists from the current PLN 36 million to as much as PLN 150-200 million per year.
Reprographic fee, which has been operating in Poland since 1994, is simply a kind of compensation for authors for private copying of their works by Poles. The problem is that the list of devices covered by it has not been updated since 2008 and contains outdated media, like VHS cassettes, while ignoring the ubiquitous smartphones today. The draft amendment is intended to change this by adapting the right to technological realities.
New rates and simplified system
The proposal of the Ministry of Culture assumes a charge of 1% for all fresh categories of equipment, and for the others a simplification of up to 2%. At the same time, the strategy is to be simplified – the number of categories of products to be charged is to fall from 65 to 19. fresh regulations would include smartphones with memory above 32 GB, computers, tablets, TVs with recording function and hard drives. The fee is to be collected straight from manufacturers and importers of equipment.
The Ministry, wishing to illustrate the burden scale, gives an example: at an average price of PLN 1800 smartphone, a one-off charge would be PLN 18. This, as the ministry notes, is little than a month's subscription to a popular streaming site.
Ministry calms, but fears remain
The most controversial issue is the possible transfer of fee costs to final customers. Deputy Head of the Ministry of Culture, Maciej Wróbel, powerfully denies it. "Part of the political scene, due to its relations with corporations, tries to push the communicative to shift work to consumers. This is absurd, justifying and legitimizing activities that are not covered by the Regulation," said the Secretary of State in his interview with PAP. Despite these assurances, the public is inactive afraid that producers and importers will include a fresh tribute in the final price of the equipment.
Regardless of how large (or small) the fresh tribute will be, individual has to pay it. Producers? Yes, due to the fact that they are obliged by a novel, but they will yet pay consumers. To be honest, I don't know how the Deputy Chief of the Ministry decidedly denied that the fresh fee would not consequence in the cost being passed on to the final customers.
From the position of economical explanation and current marketplace practice, uncovering an example of indirect taxation (i.e. imposed on a maker or importer, specified as excise duties or a reprographic charge) which would not translate into an increase in prices for the consumer at all, is highly hard and, according to most economists, impossible. The Ministry’s argument that the charge will not affect consumers is based on the presumption that its cost will be borne in full by producers and importers. However, in a marketplace economy, companies search to keep a profit margin. The introduction of a fresh charge is an additional cost for them to conduct their business, which they frequently effort to compensate for. Thus, the declaration of “prices will not rise” here is either a manifestation of naivety or political cynicism. But What harm is it to promise?Right?
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