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Florida Proposes Taxing Local LANs
Vellmont writes "From the state that brought you the 2000 presidential election debacle, now comes the proposal to tax your LAN. The Orlando Business Journal is reporting that the the state of Florida is thinking about putting a 9% tax on LANs within the state. Exactly what they will be taxing isn't clear, since the tax amounts to 9% of... something. Will taxing the electrical wires within your home be next?"
From the article:
Computer networks would be taxed at that percent on either annual lease payments or depreciation
Shouldn't the author of the article, at least, be the one to RTFA?
The tax will be applied to sales of network cables, routers, network cards, etc. They will no more audit you for having a network than they currently enforce alcohol taxes by auditing you for what you drank last night.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
according to this article: "Computer networks would be taxed at that percent on either annual lease payments or depreciation."
Why do I h8 apple?
from the article...
Although I don't approve, it looks like they are trying to go after methods that businesses use to avoid other taxes. The fact that they would even think about resorting to this is evidence of how fubar our tax codes are (particularly wrt business)...
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
"Exactly what they will be taxing isn't clear, since the tax amounts to 9% of... something."
Oh really? The first sentence of second page of article clearly states, "Computer networks would be taxed at that percent on either annual lease payments or depreciation." So they are taxing 9% of capital costs or depreciation.
Hmm, after a little further digging, it looks like rule the are referring to governs taxes on operating costs, not purchase.
There's a nice blurb at DSLReports about it.
Because of the tax benefits, most business equipment is leased. By LAN, they probably mean all LAN-related equipment.
Read the article. It says that the tax will apply to the lease payments (if the system is not owned) or the depreciation amount.
Download Linux ISOs in 5 minutes using LoRS Tools available at http://loci.cs.utk.edu
Florida has no state income tax, and doesn't charge sales tax on services...
- Robin
Here's why you'll start seeing more crazy-sounding initiatives like this "lan tax":
Didn't Vice President Gore support a telecommunications tax? And didn't several states want to tax internet commerce during the dot-com boom of the late 1990s?
This is kinda like giving a total stranger $100K and expecting him to spend it in ways that help you while not giving him any expectations on how to spend it
So taking less money from taxpayers is the same as giving it to strangers? Funny -- I thought paying taxes was more like giving money to strangers.
many of our brave soldiers sacrificing their lives in Iraq will receive PAY CUTS of around $200/month.
After the Wall Street Journal cited a story about the $200 pay cut, printed this clarification:
Many readers also pointed out that in addition to the $6,000 death benefit for families of servicemen killed in action, the Department of Veterans Affairs also offers low-cost Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance, which pays even if a soldier or veteran dies while not on duty.
Note the "tax free status," which is like giving money to a rich stranger.
Don't be surprised if you find import
Now it's IT Company story time! Everyone gather 'round! Ready? Once upon a time, a huge IT company by the name of IBM opened an office in Boca Raton, Florida. The ever-money hungry Floridian politicians, sensing a windfall, quickly went to work to enact legislation allowing the state of Florida to tax IBM's entire profits because they had a presense in Florida. IBM said "Screw you guys, we're going North!" The legislation was quickly dropped after that, but IBM held a grudge after that and eventually closed the IBM Boca plant (Which was by far the most beautiful one I've worked at to date) in the mid 90's, costing thousands of jobs in the Boca Raton area. The moral of this story is that you can try to fix something after you've broken it, but it probably won't do much good in the long run.
Oh yeah and a while back they also played the most self-rightious and annoying commercial about how if you went out of state and bought something, you owed Florida sales tax on it. So I'd like to send mad propz out to the penis of the country.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
When did they give HMO's a get-out-of-lawsuit free card? If you're referring to the most-recent legislation, that was about giving Florida doctors some relief (I should know, I am an ER doc in Florida). They actually capped my liability, which is a welcome relief... ER docs get sued often, and I can't remember the last time one of my colleagues or friends got involved in an ER case that had real merit. I'm sorry to say, but most malpractice lawsuits are for stuff that's clearly objectively reasonable care, which is probably why doctors prevail in almost 90% of those cases. Those numbers should tell you something...
HMOs, however, have had protection from lawsuits for years... it's a federal law called ERISA, and it prevents pension plans, etc from being emptied by lawsuits. Since Health Insurance is considered an employee benefit (like a pension), it creates a very effective shield against litigation.
Were you referring to some other legislation that I'm unaware of?
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
To put it in perspective, we might note that there is a long history of this sort of tax on personal things that don't affect others. The general term is "luxury tax".
...
Some of these taxes have been rather extreme. In several histories, I've read the claim that the biggest documented improvement in human health was in the UK early in the 1800's, when Parliament repealed the luxury tax on soap. Just think about that one for a moment
"Those people are all so smelly; I don't know how they stand it."
A special tax just for the privelege of having your two computers talk to each other is small stuff in comparison.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
If you RTFA, the article states what they are taxing in exactly one sentence. On the second page of the article. Clear as mud eh?
They are taxing the lease cost or the depreciation that the company writes off.
There may be additional local taxes as well.
I was wondering what the hell I was going to be taxed on my home LAN if this got passed, and since I neither lease the equipment, nor write off depreciation, I wouldn't be paying the tax. Let me run it as a home office though, and I guess I don't get to depreciate my router and Ethernet cards if I want to without paying a tax.
Bryan
(apology in advance: sorry for sounding ranty)
If you actually read the article, it seems fairly clear this tax would be aimed at business LANs, not home LANs. The Orlando Business Journal's target audience is business people not nerds. In Florida, they have a "communications tax" on business communications. There's a "proposed rule [that] pushes the definition of communications systems to include local area networks, or LANs, as well as wide area networks, or WANs, which connect computers across distances." Now it doesn't seem so bizarre does it? Or at least--it seems only as bizarre as the "communications tax" does.
Furry cows moo and decompress.
The Bible says pi is three; who are we to argue with God?
I'm not constitutional scholar, but with my vast experience (5 minutes with Google's help) it looks like you just have to be 30 and have lived there for 5 years
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?