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Internet Tax Ban Extended
GiorgioG sent in news that the ban on internet taxes will be extended for two years. Not that that will make the recession go away, but it's a start. Remember: every time you buy over the internet, an angel gets his wings.
besides the "tax" Bill Gates collects? on transactions?
-- too cruel for schuel
Screw the poorer nations. They are poor because they lack motivation and/or intelligence. Let them be, leave them to their gruel, flies, and drought. God is punishing them for their misdeeds.
The UN needs to relax. It is not, nor should it ever be a government. The UN is a forum for international discussion, nothing more.
A day will come soon when our military will refuse to fight under the UN banner. Bill Clinton is gone, and his lending of the US forces to the UN is over.
We have a real man in the whitehouse now.
What Senator Enzi's bill does is impose the taxes which the states were justifiably blocked from imposing. The result: the imposition of new taxes -- ones that will cripple e-commerce and new high tech businesses -- in the midst of an economic recession.
The $5 million minimum in Enzi's legislation is a red herring, too. Any e-commerce business that does not achieve at least $10 million in sales per year cannot compete due to a lack of volume purchasing power and economies of scale.
Why did Senator Enzi advance the legislation? To find out, we need look no farther than his own state -- Wyoming -- which has a sales tax but no income tax. Wyoming's Governor Jim Geringer, and his state revenue director Johnnie Burton, have decided that rather than putting a tax increase to the voters (which might allow a fair debate on the issue and give citizens some control of the outcome), or creating a state tax regime that is fairer and less regressive, they would aggressively pursue this new tax, which could be imposed without such "inconveniences."
The fact that this tax would appear to be imposed from without (by Congress), and that it could be implemented without a vote of the people or debate in the state legislature, makes it just the ticket for Mr. Geringer, who has failed to confront tough issues and has bowed in the past to the influence of large, out-of-state coporations at the expense of his citizens' best interests. For example, the mineral industry, which is the single largest campaign contributor in Wyoming, favors measures which will make Wyoming a less desirable place to live, because this makes it easier to carve up Wyoming's vast, unpopulated open spaces in their relentless quest for minerals. This industry also favors every measure which raises taxes on residents rather than upon itself.
It is also telling that Mr. Geringer, during the Microsoft antitrust case, favored Microsoft (see http://www.state.wy.us/governor/press_releases/199 8/june_1998/micro.html)
-- even though Microsoft had just been proven to have fabricated
evidence and lied to the judge during the trial. "In a time when most of us are striving for excellence,
[the Department of] Justice and the 20 states want only to assure mediocrity," wrote Geringer,
conveniently failing to note that Microsoft was using Internet Explorer -- a
"knock-off" product that showed no innovation whatsoever -- to crush the
innovative Netscape. In Wyoming, whatever large corporations want, they get...
and the shameless greasing of palms is barely concealed.
Michael Enzi's legislation would do nothing good for anyone -- except large corporate interests (Wal-Mart and other "big box" retailers favor the tax because they have retail stores everywhere and want to have an edge over e-commerce) and cowardly state politicians. It should -- no, must -- be defeated. And so should Enzi. (Geringer, now a "lame duck" due to term limits laws, is -- no joke! -- reputed to be considering a position with Microsoft.)