State Senator seeks videogame tax

In order to pay for an increase in juvenile justice system costs related to his bill raising the age of an adult for court purposes, a Wisconsin state senator has proposed a tax on videogames.

Senator Jon Erpenbach (D-Middleton) wants to raise the age of an adult in court from seventeen to eighteen years of age for non-violent crimes, arguing that seventeen year-olds are too young to be treated as adults and should instead have access to juvenile rehabilitation programs.

Erpenbach is proposing an additional one percent tax on videogame consoles and software in addition to the existing five per cent state sales tax.

In response to the proposal, the ESA's Michael Gallagher said that it was wrong to equate videogames with juvenile crime, and argued that the discriminatory tax would hurt the gaming industry.

Erpenbach doesn't necessarily disagree, saying that he did not believe videogames cause crime but he couldn't come up with an alternative funding source.

Wisconsin Council on Children and Families spokesperson Wendy Henderson, however, says that a fee on videogames would be appropriate because they're not the best use of teenagers' time, according to the New Richmond News.