Chicago Adds Ridiculous 9% “Cloud Tax” on Netflix and Other Streaming Services

VOD Platforms like Netflix, Spotify, and Amazon Prime are revolutionizing how Americans consume media content. These wildly popular services enable ubiquitous and virtually instantaneous access to expansive catalogues of music, movies, and TV shows.

Streaming is big business, and Chicago wants a piece of the action. On Sept. 1,the city’s controversial new “cloud tax” went into effect, extending a 9-percent “amusement tax” into the digital realm. Streaming the latest Taylor Swift album and binge-watching House of Cards is about to get a whole lot more expensive in the Windy City. In addition to its amusement tax, Chicago is extending a different set of taxes for “non-possesory computer leases” to cover cloud-based computer services like Amazon Web Services and the research database LexisNexis.

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