Tories say there’s no tariff on music players

The Conservative government said there is no new tariff on digital music players, as economics professor Mike Moffatt said he discovered in the government's 2013 federal budget. "I want to clarify that there is no ipod tax," Kathleen Perchaluk, a spokeswoman for Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, said in an emailed statement Friday. "Music devices like iPods are imported into Canada duty-free under a long-standing special tariff classification from 1987. That special tariff classification was in no way altered by recent changes to the General Preferential Tariff foreign aid program.” Mike Moffatt, assistant professor of economics at the Richard Ivey School of Business, said on Twitter Thursday that he discovered tariff code 8519.81.29 in the budget, which covers digital music players. That led the opposition NDP to issue a release that said the Conservatives "introduced an iPod Tax" of five per cent, and that " Minister James Moore and Tony Clement must be furious about this development." Perchaluk said The Globe and Mail retracted an article by Moffatt that "falsely claimed Economic Action Plan 2013 included an iPod tax." “I found it by accident and it took an hour to convince myself that I wasn't making a mistake,” Moffatt said on Twitter Thursday. “I suspect the Tories had no idea about this new iPod tariff. Suspect it's accidental. The tariff rules are mind numbingly complicated.” The Conservative government opposed an NDP private members' bill for a levy on digital music players to compensate musicians, calling it an “iPod tax.” The government also passed regulations last year to ensure the Copyright Act's private copying levy will not extend to memory cards used in smartphones. --- NOTE: An earlier version of this story cited Moffatt's Twitter messages and article in The Globe and Mail. This story has been updated to include the government's response, which refuted the premise of the original story.

Tories say there’s no tariff on music players

Brief | April 4, 2013

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