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Taxing Text Messages?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the bright-ideas dept.

Makarand writes "SMS is a very popular way of communication in the Phillipines with an estimated 14 million phone subscribers sending an average of 10 text messages a day. However, that may all change if a proposal from the IMF to impose a tax on SMS is implemented to solve the country's fiscal problems according to an article in The Straits Times. The IMF is basing its suggestion on the fact that the country's tax base currently rests on the troubled sectors of the economy- banking and manufacturing, which cannot be squeezed anymore. Hopefully, our political think tanks will not get any such ideas."

4 of 173 comments (clear)

  1. It's the IMF! by Mel · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Bear in mind that the IMF are only brought in when the country is seriously screwed with it's economy already. When they are "advising" the government, they will take whatever steps are necesssary to get the country back on track rather than falling further into financial ruin. They often will take sometimes drastic measures and it is expected it is going to be a tough 5 to 10 years for the countries population. At least in this case, taxing SMS messages, which already happens in a number of countries (I'm taxed 2.5c (Euro cent) per text message which is tax at 21%) . This issue is not one to get into a twist over.

  2. HUH? by jonr · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Aren't SMS already taxed? You pay for each SMS message, it shows up on your phonebill, and then the government adds salestax or value added tax. End of story.
    I assume that phone companies pay taxes there, like every other businesses....
    J.

  3. Tax on the stupid? by dpt · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So, given the demographic that seems to like "texting", isn't this like lotteries ie. a tax on stupid people? It seems to me to be only interesting to people for which email is some sort of "novelty".

    Text messages are *ridiculously* expensive already, for what you get. Think about the cost per byte that they are charging people! I'd be prepared to pay a very small flat monthly fee to send as many messages as I like. Any thing else is simply price gouging.

    Not to mention that they take too long to compose. It amuses me to watch Joe Average compose one of these things. In the time it took to compose the message and send it, they could have called the recepient 10 times already, and sorted out whatever it was in 30 seconds, or left a message at the speed at which they can speak.

    Still, no one ever underestimated the intelligence and taste of the general public ... and with the baffling popularity of "texting", this trend looks set to continue into a new century.

  4. Re:Proves the old thought by spongman · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The price of a bullet, damn that's cheap! Here in the good ole US of A they take half of everything you own.