tax on external HDD

[johnhamler1]

the frenchies have decided to tax external Harddrives.

I think more and more people will plug their HDD on DVD standalone players equipped with a USB plug , or any equipment offering the capabilities to watch pirated DIVX.

so anyone who buy or even think to buy an external HDD is a pirat!!!

[DarkZell666]

Where did you get this info from ? Dammit I was indeed thinking of buying one, but if I'm going to pay an extra 20% or whatever on it I'd rather find another solution (a bigger standard hdd to put in my usb rack ...).

[johnhamler1]

seen that on TV5, or la 1.

tax will be around 15 euro for a medium external...(my guess)

[int10h]

We have to keep in mind that all that media tax thing was meant to compensate for the alleged loss our "private copy right" is causing to the entertainment industry. It has nothing to do with piracy.

Of course, the loss is evaluated over sales projections given by the industry itself... and then citizens using their right to private copy are called pirates, sued and taxed again, the loop is closed and everybody is happy (even the citizens, who prove it by their votes).

As far as I know, the tax is already applied to external HDD (10€ to 15€, 10€ to 50€ in the near future). I'm not sure about internal HDD.

[Sirber]

I installed a USB plug on my toaster, I wanna play pirated divx there too ;)

Is it me or Europe is great to tax everything "technological"?

[int10h]

Is it me or Europe is great to tax everything "technological"?

You can strike the last word out, it's useless :D.

[unskinnyboy]

I stopped buying external hard drives the moment I realized how ridiculously expensive they were over an internal one with the same capacity (even with taking into account the cost of the casing). Maybe they are already taxing us North Americans without being open about it. Now what I do is to buy an internal hard disk plus an external casing for ~$25 and assemble my own external HDD. God knows if those casings are being taxed or not. Sometimes I get this nagging feeling that $25 for a stupid plasic shell is a bit too much.

[dumbas..]

Get a tray less rack system. By HDD and hot swap out SATA
No tax then??

eg:
http://www.nanopoint.co.uk/en/pages/products/mobile-racks_list.php?we_objectID=2627

[Sirber]

Buy them in special. I got a 320GB USB2 for 100$ CAD.

[Shinigami-Sama]

Could always ask about putting in an order with the local Uni
I"m sure they wouldn't mind
if you're willing to grab 50 units at a time mind

[CWR03]

As I suggested in a different thread, another option would be to buy a cheap PC case to house extra hard drives. They'd get the cooling they require to last, and internal drives are generally a lot cheaper even without a tax. I've now "purchased" three cases that included a power supply that cost me nothing after rebate, and SATA drives can be cabled from one PC to another pretty easily.

[SeeMoreDigital]

I've got most of my media stored on external HDD's now....

In the UK, PC World are currently selling a FreeCom 400GB external HDD for £110.00, which I don't think is too bad a price!

On the other hand I could buy a 400GB internal HDD and external USB2 case for around £80.00 and £20.00 respectively... But why bother when there's only a £10.00 difference and no compatibility/warranty issues to think about - should either item go "tits-up"....

[johnhamler1]

I personaly believe we are not very far to tax internal HDD and computer/ laptop,...

in our lovely EU social system, anything not really necesseraly to maintain our life alive(like food, water, air), is object of luxus and of course taxable(like caviar...)...

i would like to see our politicians going to work on horses...
or using a messengers riding horses instead of using email.

that means if you use email instead of normal post to send your mail, you will be considered as a pirat and you will have to pay a tax even if you have never downloaded anything illegal in your life...resulting millions of innocents EU citizen who will turnthemselves into a evil pirat when they will discover how they have been ripped off (again !!!???)by our lovely politicians ...

sorry for my mistakes, but I think you get my POV.

and don't forget the tax on the tax, what it is? well you buy a pc which has been taxed, 6 months later, you intern HDD died, and here again, you have to pay the tax on a new HDD, so you pay 2 times the tax...

not only you pay the tax on HDD, but you have to pay the VAT(around 20%) of this HDD tax.

[Hard Core Rikki]

Does that tax apply to :

1 - ALL external HDDs sold in France

OR

2 - ONLY those manufactured OUTSIDE France (and sold in France) ?

Is that restriction catering to HDD below/up a certain disk space, or desktop-sized HDDs ? What about slim external HDDs ?

[SeeMoreDigital]

not only you pay the tax on HDD, but you have to pay the VAT(around 20%) of this HDD tax.And just when you get used to this tax, the EU ill most probably start slapping an ECO tax on such items - to cover the cost of their "friendly" disposal :scared:

[vazel]

I have an external IDE to USB air cooled drive enclosure that I stick regular internal drives into. I keep the HDs in their anti-static bags they came in and just swap them as needed.

[unmei]

@SMD:
What, there is no such tax yet in all of the EU? Or is it just that you think local regulations are going to be replaced by one on EU level?

They introduced that about 5 years ago here, at the same time a requiring sellers to take back any electronic devices. But i'm not entirely sure whether it works such that the state takes the tax money and uses it to buy the returned devices from the stores or the state only requires a return system and the shops are free to organize the disposal and cost management on their own.
Anyway, it is not price-related like a VAT would be, but based on device type. It's around 5 CHF (~3€) for a phone/PDA sized device and around 50 CHF for a computer TFT. For a HDD i think it would be about as much as for a PDA, or less since i imagine it costs rather less to disassemble a HDD by material.

(Yeah i know it's a bit O/T, but still about device taxes)

[int10h]

Does that tax apply to :

1 - ALL external HDDs sold in France

OR

2 - ONLY those manufactured OUTSIDE France (and sold in France) ?

Is that restriction catering to HDD below/up a certain disk space, or desktop-sized HDDs ? What about slim external HDDs ?

The tax applies to every storage device sold in France, based on capacity. That said, EU laws grants us the right to buy out of France (free trade inside EU), so we can purchase HDD, usb keys or DVD online in a nearby country without paying the tax.

[Lokean]

I would prefer to pay tax on all harddisks (and comparable media) if they finally make file-sharing legal. That would solve a lot of problems.

[Mug Funky]

making filesharing as it is today completely legal is a tad naive...

i'm with the whole internal HDD + USB/SATA/both external case. cooling can be a problem though, and dropping them is easier than you'd think... and the bigger they make them, the worse it is when they crash :)

[johnhamler1]

I would prefer to pay tax on all harddisks (and comparable media) if they finally make file-sharing legal. That would solve a lot of problems.

exactly, and if you pay a tax of 70$-80$ a year to download anything you want from the p2p, time 70$ by 1 billiard of citizen, and look at how much money this will generate.

70 billiards of US$ going to hollywood,...

[int10h]

For our benefit, the invisible hand of market® is on our side, because the tax is a threat to mass storage companies.