To my fellow American readers, Happy Tax Day. Are you expecting a nice fat refund or are you in the hole? Me, I’m in kinda deep as I owe money — $851 between Federal and D.C. — for the first time in about 10 years. I know exactly why I owe D.C. money; taxes were never taken out from my second job for the city, and that needs to be remedied post-haste. But the Federal bill is a mystery to me. One of my housemates suggested I may have moved into a higher tax bracket with the extra income I had in 2007 compared to the year before. That $600 stimulus check will kinda make up for it whenever it comes in, but not really.

And speaking of taxes, several states are trying to push new laws on taxing digital media downloads. (CNet calls it the “iTunes tax.”) As a D.C.-based customer of the iTunes Music Store, I’m charged sales tax on anything I purchase from it, while neighboring Maryland and Virginia customers aren’t charged sales tax on those purchases. A proposition is on the table in Maryland to charge sales tax on digital downloads, and Virginia doesn’t charge tax because downloads aren’t considered tangible products.