BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) — As part of Gov. Jeff Landry’s tax reform plan, lawmakers are considering updating the state’s sales tax collection to include digital goods and services. It is part of a broader plan to expand the sales tax base to pay off the lost revenue of an income tax cut.
“Most of the digital goods were once taxed by the Louisiana Tax Code as tangible personal property. But now these goods and services are no longer taxed,” said state Rep. Ken Brass, D-Vacherie.
The bill has come to be known as the “Netflix bill” as it would tack on sales taxes to online services such as video streaming, digital books and gaming. Some of the products are already subject to sales taxes, but this law would bring them all in line.
It is estimated this modernizing of the sales tax would bring in an additional $40-million a year to the state coffers. This goes in hand with two other proposed bills that would expand the physical goods and services the sales tax applies to and make the temporary .45 sales tax permanent.