EUROPEANS WILL TAX NET SALES

The European Union has decided to charge a sales tax on products bought and downloaded over the Internet. Sellers of music, software and videos will be affected. Frits Bolkestein, the EU’s taxation commissioner, explained the tax would benefit continental merchants. “This will remove the serious competitive handicap which EU firms currently face,” he said, according to the Associated Press. Europeans can often find lower prices for goods online than they can in their own countries. The EU may extend the tax to “hard” goods like books, a spokesman for the organization said in New York.