New products could be liable to taxation automatically

The global market for tablets is growing continuously and leads to high revenues at the expense of other technologies. According to market researchers, Apple’s iPad shows best chances to rule the tablet market for the foreseeable future, but many others follow. Almost every supplier of consumer electronics has established such a device in his product range. This may be due to the fact that tablets are becoming popular for business as well as for private end-customers. Thus, questions on the regulatory level arise: Are these devices subject to copyright levies, in which countries and at what rate?

A tablet only completes the product chain from a MP3/4-player, via a Smartphone, a PC up to smart TVs with internet connection and content storage. All these devices are part of our daily life. Therefore, expectations arise from different sides, i.e. the levy systems in the different countries are getting prepared for the new technology. In other words: they are charging levies for tablets.

There are only few countries which have already defined a tariff precisely for innovative devices like tablets and/or smart TVs. However, this does not necessarily mean that tablets in other countries are not levied at all or that a new specific tariff has to be established; the liability of a tablet may as well refer to its internal HDD, its storage capacity, its functions, the connecting possibilities to another device, a printer for example or other. Therefore, every company has to be aware of the fact that tablets might, tariff-wise, be added to an already existing product category and, thus, be levied with immediate effect.

Therefore, companies have to monitor the developments precisely in order to gain legal certainty and set up financial plans.