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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?"
[FLORIDA]. What more can you say about a state that can't even figure out voting?
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
That's why the DMCA, TCPA, copyright/trademark law, wiretap laws, etc. work perfectly. At least in this case, there is no chance at all that this proposed tax will actually happen. Next they will try to tax people who _think_ about buying something on the net, or ponder putting gas in their cars. Frigging idiots.
(Idiotic laws/implementation is part of why SCO is trying to pull off crazy moves)
--
I hear there are two types of people in Florida... Really really old people, and their parents.
+1 for good karma, love for the DMCA, SCO, and low user id.
From the state that brought you the 2000 presidential election debacle
Would that be Texas?
Are they going to audit anyone with a computer and an email address?
8==8 Bones 8==8
Heck, take 100 percent. Anything I can do to help.
Why is it called COMMON sense when so few people have it?
> Exactly what they will be taxing isn't clear, since the tax amounts to 9% of... something.
Clearly, they'll charge you 94,371.84 bytes per megabyte.
Presumably you can pay by simply sending them a big e-message.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
according to this article: "Computer networks would be taxed at that percent on either annual lease payments or depreciation."
Why do I h8 apple?
The Lanquisition!
NOBODY expects the LANquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency.... Our *three* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency...and an almost fanatical devotion to the IRS.... Our *four*...no... *Amongst* our weapons.... Amongst our weaponry...are such elements as fear, surprise.... I'll come in again.
The original intent of most communications taxes was to subsidize the government's cost for the publically provided communications infrastructure... if the gov't is going to be supplying me with a free GigaBit ethernet LAN, then sure, they can tax it's use.
Get with the program people... sounds as wacky as Seattle's proposed tax on espresso!
MadCow.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
This is all just an attempt to take back the coveted title of The Doofus State from California. We reacquired it thanks to our upcoming election. (If Schwarzenegger wins, it's Total Recall, I suppose.)
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Should 95% appear to small, be thankful I don't take it all, 'cause I'm the taxman, yeah, I'm the taxman.
If you drive your car, I'll tax the street, if you take a walk, I'll tax your feet, if you get too cold, I'll tax the heat, if you take the bus, I'll tax your seat, TAXMAN!!!
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
If it's by the byte, for heavily black/jewish democratic networks 1MB= 1024kB. On republican networks 1MB will = 1000kB.
Oh...and will they count hanging patch cords? What about ones that are plugged in, but haven't fully clicked into the port, and fall out during counting?
God help Florida users if the government learns of half versus full duplex...
Please help metamoderate.
Well, if the RIAA can discover "virtual" CD burners in raids, maybe they'll tax "virtual ISPs", or "server potential" which would be the result of some weird formula involving CPU types and speeds, RAM complements, etc...
I can see the headlines now. "Joseph McMurphy has been artrested in Altamonte Springs, Florida, for allegedly possessing the equivalent of 6 Internet servers without paying network wiring taxes. This amount, roughly equivalent to 60 small Web sites or 600 personal sites......."
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
There are some amazingly difficult terminology problems for them to define:
home be next?
Well lets see, I pay tax on my telephone bills, on my power bill, on my gas bill. I pay it on any wires I buy to install in my house and I pay tax on my house itself. What isn't taxed within my house?
0xfeedface
What a great way to encourage businesses to setup shop in your state! I'm sure companies will flock to Florida now.
...right after I finish writing one for SCO.
Actually, as it turns out, because of some voting confusion, for every LAN installation, you'll be expected to pay approximately 9% of Pat Buchanan to the state of Florida. Pat Buchanan could not be reached for comment.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
I've pretty much grown use to shite like this from our legislature. When they're not too busy cutting money from education or giving HMO's a get-out-of-lawsuit-free card, they occasionally manage to do something I find surprising and refreshing, but no less assinine.
I think this law is fine, but I say reverse it: instead of levying a tax on private companies for their LANs, how about they levy a tax on themselves for every piece of copper and fiber in the state, county, and city government networks. Then they should take that money and invest it in supporting the bits of Florida's economy that aren't tourism or hospitality, and see how that works out.
Fucktards.
Yes, my only tool is a hammer. And you're starting to look like a nail.
Because it is easier than cutting spending.
No, they're not monitoring traffic. They're planning to tax lease payments (assuming you lease your network equipment) or depreciation costs (assuming you purchase it and deduct the depreciation costs from your taxes).
The reason that you don't understand it is because it's fucking insane. I'm all for taxing businesses, the wealthy, etc. for their fair share but this is ridiculous on so many levels.
If this tax is to be fair, then they have to tax any other business leases (e.g. equipment) and depreciation on any other business assets at the same rate (assuming this isn't already done, which I doubt). If they propose this "tax parity," the shit will hit the fan in FL and this tax will disappear.
What will probably happen however is that they'll put it up to a vote and a bunch of ancient Palm Beach County residents will fuck up the butterfly ballot and the tax will pass.
Now that I've said all of that, if the proceeds from this tax were used to set up low cost (~$20/mo or less) statewide broadband access (available to individuals and businesses), regardless of location then perhaps this would be a good thing. More thank likely though the money's just going to go to that other Bush's campaign war chest.
BFL
There's one thing computing teaches you, and that's that there's no point to remembering everything.
--Doug Copland
Here's why you'll start seeing more crazy-sounding initiatives like this "lan tax":
1. Outsourcing jobs overseas = massive amounts of lost taxes for USA. Since IT jobs were hit the hardest and California was the hottest IT area, it doesn't take a genius to figure out one substantial reason why they're in a budget crisis (which is a taste of things to come for our federal budget).
2. Huge tax cuts without requirements on how it should be spent = lost tax revenues that might not be spent at all or spent in ways that improve the economy. 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 (i.e. he can spend it all on building offshore infrastructure to move even more US jobs overseas!).
3. Our president's failure to build consensus in the UN to attack Iraq and then being exposed for making false justification statements means that other countries are less willing to send their young soldiers to die in Iraq. This means more of OUR taxes going to pay for this ongoing fiasco which will likely INCREASE the odds of future terrorist attacks & boycotts against US-made products.
4. and so on including our mounting budget deficit which is like running up a huge credit card bill with mounting interest that YOU and I must pay later with...you guessed it--more freaking taxes than EVER given the aging demographics of babyboomers and their impact on social security, medicare and reduced collection of income taxes from them as they retire.
NOTE: $100K is roughly how much VP. Cheney will save in taxes in one year due to the Bush tax cuts. Since that money has to come from somewhere, many of our brave soldiers sacrificing their lives in Iraq will receive PAY CUTS of around $200/month.
Don't be surprised if you find important services like public schools and homeland security facing massive budget cuts in the future--it doesn't HAVE to happen but I don't see a way out if we continue managing our government in the most idiotic way I've seen in decades.
I feel sorry for the poor soul who'll get elected as our president next because he's gonna have an almost impossible task on his hands (he'll need to take massive and very unpopular action to fix this mess being created by the current politicians).
Because we need to build multi-billion dollar missile defense systems that don't even work to protect us from terrorists who don't even own sophisticated missile systems. It's all very logical, really.
Because it wasn't taxed yet
Where do you live?
Around here, when we were first permitted to get to the Internet via a phone line, there was already a tax on every phone bill. Then the cable folks supplied Internet service, and part of every cable bill is a tax. I've bought a few wires (thin ethernet first, then the hub that the vendors have forced on us for the last few years, all to connect a few home computers, and part of every purchase is a tax.
We need electricity to run our computers, and part of every electric bill is - you guessed it - a tax.
So what they're talking about is a special, higher tax for those of us on the Net. Every little bit of the net has been taxed right from the start; they just want networks taxed even higher than any other sort of comm or power equipment.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
you can pass the crack pipe back to SCO now.
This reminds me of the bizarre logic that was used by advocates of the 'Intangibles' tax we collect here in KS. They said that if you invested your money in farm land
you'd pay property taxes on it, but if you just put it in the bank and 'clipped coupons' you don't pay them, so it's only fair to tax intangibles too.This reasoning completely ignores the fact that the capital that your investment goes to is already subject to property tax, and taxing intanbibles qua intangibles is double taxation, just as taxing computer networks is as well.
Before anyone clicks on the Reply to This link to pipe up that it's double taxation on the telcos too... yes, it is. It's an extra tax they pay in exchange for having a government-mandated monopoly. They pass that tax along to their captive customer base, which is oblivious to the fact that businesses don't pay taxes, they collect them.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
Because senior citizens rarely use LANs, so the AARP and won't bitch about it much. ;)
Don't you know ANYTHING about how Florida works?
Never look down your nose at others. Someday, someone is bound to see your boogers.
Huge tax cuts without requirements on how it should be spent = lost tax revenues that might not be spent at all or spent in ways that improve the economy. 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
Good point. The only solution is a 100 per cent flat tax rate. Clearly, the only organization that can spend money wisely is the government.
While we're at it, if we can't trust the people to spend money wisely, why can we trust them to pick the government? We should also close the "voting loophole".
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Come and listen to a story about a guv named Jeb
A rich southernor, barely got his bro Prez,
Then one day he was lookin' for more dough,
And got the idea he could tax the LANs too.
Data that is, ethernet, Texas bits.
Well the first thing you know ol' Jeb's still a millionaire,
Kinfolk said Jeb give some cash from there
Said Floridee is the place for dough and fun
So they loaded up the vaults and moved to Washington.
DC, that is.
Greedy pols, movie stars.
Don't be so quick to dismiss all regulations as unnecessary interference. Some are nothing but lobbyists freezing out the competition, but others addressed real problems.
The bottom line is if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck and is being baked with an orange glaze and served to hungry diners, it's a duck. Paypal is a bank and the sooner it is treated as one the better off everyone will be -- too many people have been burned by arbitrary and opaque dispute resolution policies. VoIP that replaces conventional phone service *is* phone service and the users need to have the same protections (e.g., against unauthorized wiretaps, arbitrary charge dispute resolutions, etc.) as regular phone service users, etc.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
'Oh, so they have the internet on computers now do they?'
I think that quote about sums up this plan.
Time for some tasty Shiner Bock!
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?
Annual lease payments? Huh? On a LAN? Not on a computer, where I can see an annual lease payment, but on a LAN?
They appear to not know what they're talking about... "OK everyone, the tax assessor's coming. Unplug your computers, and we'll power down and disconnect the routers." You may think that's silly, but if you do that, there is no LAN. If you want to tax something, tax the hardware or the software...O, wait, they already do.
But what is this "LAN" that you're leasing?
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I'm kind of surprised that the Texas constitution doesn't proscribe foreigners like Bush from being governor.
Personally, I think taxation should be directly related to the public cost for the item or activity. For instance, having a home means that you make police, fire, schools, prisons, water service, etc. necessary. So tax a home based upon the costs incurred to support these things. Tax a vehicle based on the costs needed to maintain the roads -- i.e., wear and tear on the roads. Tax pollution and garbage.
The things that seem the most unjust are the taxes which are completely disconnected from the use of the tax money. A tax on LANs is ridiculous because there is no reason to think that it costs the state any money for you to have one -- the public incurs no costs to support your LAN. In addition, LANs are things that are needed by people and businesses. So, like windows and hearths, it seems even worse that the state is collecting taxes on them because they know people cannot live without them. It makes you feel very powerless at the hands of the state.