April 13, 2012 12:30 pm EDT

Portuguese opposition party wants 'terabyte tax,' voters want a new opposition party

Portugal's opposition party, Partido Socialista, is pondering a tax on storage media under the flag of copyright protection. Under the proposal, consumers would pay €0.2 for every gigabyte of storage purchased, so a 1TB HDD would cost around €21 ($28) extra, plus an additional levy on devices over that size means a drive could cost an additional €103.2 ($135). It doesn't just stop at desktop platters: USB sticks, memory cards and even smartphones would also be charged, with any device packing 64GB of storage facing a surcharge of €32 ($42). A party member defended the idea, saying that the tax is aimed at professionals who use larger capacity drives -- but since most consumer HDDs come with a minimum size of 160GB and the legislation is also supposedly meant to tackle piracy, we're not entirely sure it adds up -- except maybe in government coffers.

Portuguese opposition party wants 'terabyte tax,' voters want a new opposition party originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Apr 2012 08:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

PermalinkSlashdot | Tech Eye ||Comments

Original Link: http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/13/portugal-terabyte-tax/

View Full Article

Engadget

Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics. Engadget was launched in March of 2004 in partnership with the Weblogs, Inc. Network (WI

More About this Source Visit Engadget