An education in performance tax effects

Students at the University of North Dakota are hoping the performance tax doesn’t scuttle their plan to start a campus radio station, the Dakota Student reports:

How much would you pay to listen to music on the radio? The newly anticipated, student run UND radio station is facing a tough start because of that very question.

The Performance Rights Act is a proposed bill that would essentially "bail out the record industry," requiring radio stations to pay royalty fees, similar to a tax, when music is played on the air; the breakdown: record labels would receive 50 percent, artists 45 percent, musicians and background singers 5 percent.

The article also reports that nearby campuses face possible budget shortfalls because of the performance tax:

St. Cloud State University student run radio gets approximately $14,000 a year from Student Government funding. Their total operations are nearly two thousand dollars more, roughly 16,000 total, an amount they need to make up in advertising and raising money. The new $500 imposed tax would represent 25% of what they need to just break even.

For those of us whose college career involved lots of last-minute paper writing and all-night cram session, these UND students deserve respect for planning ahead. But wouldn’t it be better if they didn’t have to worry about shutting down their radio transmitter because of the performance tax?

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