Smart phone tax is a smart move
I found out some rather horrible news today – just as i was about pop out of the office and get myself a shiny, does-everything phone. Slow off the mark I know but I was in need of some Wi-Fi goodness for mobile blogging at the International Consumer Electronics Show in a couple of weeks. Anyway, I digress..
It turns out that the EU Commission are planning on reclassifying smart phones as “multi-functional devices” making them taxable. Under the new proposals handsets capable of receiving TV pictures will face a price increase of 14 per cent. Handsets with Sat Nav systems will also see their price go up by 3.7 per cent. Phones with QWERTY keyboards will be affected too.
The latest increase will bring the tax on smart handsets that Germany and the Netherlands have had for a while now, to the rest of Europe. We’ve been better off in Blighty and we didn’t even realise it.
According to figures from Web Pro News, sales of smart handsets have increase by 71 per cent this year. That’s some good figures considering we’ve all been feeling the pinch recently.
Even if smart phones have been relatively immune to the economy going bust, driving up their price doesn’t seem like a great idea when the government’s trying to encourage us all to spend for victory. It isn’t in the interest of the consumers, the networks of the manufacturers.
There is some good news though. We don’t have to start paying more for our smart phone fixes just yet. Maria Assimakopoulou, spokeswoman for EU Tax Commissioner Laszlo Kovac told Reuters that discussions around the taxes would take at least six months.
I guess that means that if we want our gadget phones we’d better get them now before the prices get hiked up.
Maybe that’s all part of the EU’s plan?
Double bluffing us all into spending more? Very smart guys, very smart.
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