News Pakistan to Tax Graphics Cards Based on Onboard Memory

[Admin]

Pakistan will now tax graphics cards in accordance with their onboard memory capacity.

Pakistan to Tax Graphics Cards Based on Onboard Memory : Read more

 

[InvalidError]

Taxing used 5+ years old GPUs the same as current-gen stuff based on the amount of VRAM. Sounds extremely silly to me. At least the "valuations" are along well-used GPU pricing than new.

 

[peachpuff]

Pakistan has a functioning government?

 

[DRagor]

Pakistan has a functioning government?

The less functioning the government is the more taxes it makes. It is only natural.

Sounds extremely silly to me

Taxes are to bring money to government, not to look smart or silly.

 

[InvalidError]

The less functioning the government is the more taxes it makes. It is only natural.

Taxes are to bring money to government, not to look smart or silly.

Valuing an RTX3090Ti at $540 based on VRAM cheats the government out of half the taxes, which contradict your claimed objective of wanting to raise taxes. It likely has more to do with reducing customs' processing times and operating costs by giving people importing new stuff a ~50% off valuation for import tax purposes they cannot refuse.

 

[JTWrenn]

A percentage based on market value at the time makes about a thousand times more sense but oh well.

 

[pclaughton]

So close! Taxing based on TBP would've been a better idea, but that would be asking governments to understand technology, and I'm not holding my breath.

 

[derekullo]

Would a Geforce 970 be considered a 3 or 4 gigabyte card ?

Sorry couldn't help myself!

 

[Nikolay Mihaylov]

I think a better basis for taxation is the number of VRM stages.

 

[InvalidError]

I think a better basis for taxation is the number of VRM stages.

You run into the same issue of old GPUs with a bunch of stages (ex.: 295X2) getting taxed the same as new stuff based on a metric completely detached from the actual performance GPUs generally derive their performance from. Taxing based on phase count would also have the perverse incentive of loading the crap out of fewer phases to go down a tax bracket or two, which could be problematic for long-term reliability.

From an environmental point of view, taxing based on board power would make sense to encourage buying components with lower power draw or at least better performance per watt.

 

[Soaptrail]

Taxing used 5+ years old GPUs the same as current-gen stuff based on the amount of VRAM. Sounds extremely silly to me. At least the "valuations" are along well-used GPU pricing than new.

for cars the US taxes based on gas consumption. but not all cars use gas. They need to tax on mileage but good luck making that work.

 

[InvalidError]

for cars the US taxes based on gas consumption. but not all cars use gas. They need to tax on mileage but good luck making that work.

Burning oil at a power plant to power EVs is about twice as efficient and exhaust scrubbing at a stationary power plant isn't space and weight limited like it is on vehicles. Power plants can also be located outside cities where whatever exhaust is left isn't impacting air quality as much. EV drivers still pay somewhat of an oil-and-gas tax through their power bill depending on how much of their energy mix is fossil-based.

EVs still need tires and the rate of tire wear is proportional to mileage, vehicle weight, driving conditions and driving style. Once EV adoption is far enough along, I expect some of the fuel tax to progressively transition to tires and the rest may get taxed directly through vehicle registration renewal so people using off-grid solar for all their EV charging don't get to dodge contributing to road maintenance.

 

[USAFRet]

They need to tax on mileage but good luck making that work.

Already here for some states.

Virginia:
In 2020, they instituted a Highway Use Fee. For elec and otherwise fuel efficient vehicles.
Flat fee added to the annual registration.
It now costs more to register my Mini Cooper than it does my F-150. Even though the F-150 is far far heavier and larger.

People complained, saying it wasn't fair to those who didn't drive a whole lot.

So this year, they added another option.
Mileage.
This has 2 options of its own. ALL the miles you drive, or just those miles in Virginia.
Said mileage collected by a module in the OBDII port. And of course reported to the state DMV.

So, you can pay whichever is cheapest for you.
The flat fee, or one of the mileage based options.

Me, I'm sticking with the flat fee.

 

[spongiemaster]

A percentage based on market value at the time makes about a thousand times more sense but oh well.

You didn't read the article. That's what they had, but importers were declaring bogusly low values for the GPU's, so RAM amount is what Pakistan is going with. One would hope they did some math and found this will make them more money than the previous percentage.

 

[InvalidError]

You didn't read the article. That's what they had, but importers were declaring bogusly low values for the GPU's, so RAM amount is what Pakistan is going with. One would hope they did some math and found this will make them more money than the previous percentage.

Unless they intend to disassemble every GPU to identify the memory chip size and count, people will still be able to report bogus model numbers and VRAM amounts.

 

[spongiemaster]

Unless they intend to disassemble every GPU to identify the memory chip size and count, people will still be able to report bogus model numbers and VRAM amounts.

Lying about a price and getting away with it is a whole lot easier than lying about what product is in your shipping crates and why your claims don't match the records of what you actually sold to your customers.

 

[ShahzaibMasood]

Ahh another * by government this is so unbalanced taxation

 

[OldNoobette]

I'm guessing their actual goal is to tax all memory, as just taxing graphics card memory would exclude on board GPUs/APUs that use system memory.
In a way .. it's kind of smart, such a taxation might encourage local production of ram in Pakistan and no doubt the local manufacturers would have certain tax breaks over imports.

 

[OldNoobette]

Already here for some states.

Virginia:
In 2020, they instituted a Highway Use Fee. For elec and otherwise fuel efficient vehicles.
Flat fee added to the annual registration.
It now costs more to register my Mini Cooper than it does my F-150. Even though the F-150 is far far heavier and larger.

People complained, saying it wasn't fair to those who didn't drive a whole lot.

So this year, they added another option.
Mileage.
This has 2 options of its own. ALL the miles you drive, or just those miles in Virginia.
Said mileage collected by a module in the OBDII port. And of course reported to the state DMV.

So, you can pay whichever is cheapest for you.
The flat fee, or one of the mileage based options.

Me, I'm sticking with the flat fee.

Seems counter productive given you can claim a E-Vehicle discount and claim a mileage deduction off on your tax returns. Seems like a waste of resources that could be put to better use

 

[OldNoobette]

I just bought a 12gb 2060 for $290 to replace my aging 3gb r9 280x
Whew! just another reason i am glad i don't live in Pakistan