House Passes Internet Tax Ban

computerlady writes "InfoWorld reports that the House of Representatives today voted a permanent ban on 'levying taxes unique to the Internet.' The Internet Tax Nondiscrimination Act would permanently prohibit taxing jurisdictions in the U.S. from levying such taxes as e-mail taxes, bandwidth taxes, or bit taxes. To become law, the bill would have to pass the U.S. Senate and be signed by President Bush. The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee approved its version of the bill July 31, and its next stop is the full Senate."

Comments

Choice quote...

[Ratface]

"This bill would broaden access to the Internet, expand consumer choice, promote certainty and growth in the IT sector of our economy and encourage the deployment of broadband services at lower prices. " ... so how come a bill that ensures that the Internet will stay as untaxed as it already is (for Americans at least), manages to promote all those great changes huh?

Oh well, can't complain too much, at least it's positive news. I just though it made good spin! :-D

Re:Choice quote...

[Talthane]

Because if you're a company that has something to do with internet services, and there were rumours of a 'net tax, you'd probably stop some of your initiatives and hoard money as a contingency fund.

When the quote says 'certainty', that means a lot to any risk-conscious company. If you have a risk mitigated or removed, you feel safer in going ahead with an initiative like setting up broadband, etc.

Finally, a step in the right direction!

[goldspider]

Can you remember the last time that Congress actually prohibited a form of taxation? In a country where we roughly pay an average of 1/3 of our salaries to variuos governmental entities, I welcome anything that potentially keeps money in my pocket.

Of course, socialists and Bush-bashers are going to hate this on principal, but I think most of us can see the positive conotations such a law has.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[mental_telepathy]

I welcome anything that potentially keeps money in my pocket

You're in luck. I think "Anything to keep money in my pocket" is the Bush campaign slogan for '04.

The reality of a law like this is that it's a PR move. The only thing that can legitmately reduce the tax burden is a cut in spending. Trust me, you'll end up paying that Bush deficit eventually, no matter how sweet a nice fat refund check is now.

You: Yay! Not Internet Tax
Government: Your Walrus pacifier tax is due.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[goldspider]

"The reps, however, want to get rid of all the taxes, but still have enough to only pay for the stuff they care about, like the military."

You say that like that's a bad thing. Whatever happened to the concept of "limited government"?

"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

While this famous quote isn't a comprehensive examination of our government's structure, it is a decent summation of what should be the boundaries of our government's role in our lives.

Nowhere in that quote is mentioned a guarantee of prosperity, nor does it speak of a responsibility of the government (through taxpayers) to provide for those who can't or won't provide for themselves.

Quite simply, the government was never intended to function as a means to redistribute the wealth of its citizens; to divert money from one group of individuals to another.

"I learned in economics class that if x then taxes should go up and if y taxes should go down. I want a government that took economics class."

I'm 100% in agreement with you there. That's one of my beefs with the current administration.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[DickBreath]

Europe is looking more and more attractive. You actually GET something in return for your taxes there.

I disagree. Just look at all of the additional value we get here in the US for our tax dollar...

• DMCA
• UTICA
• CALEA
• COPA
• CDA
• Our well-oiled smoothly running Patent office -- where applications are processed and granted quickly -- probably most smoothly running in the world.
• Our enlightened Copyright extensions
• War on Drugs
• War on Terror
• War on Freedom
• The largest NoooKuLar Arsenul in the world

...and, think of the tax dollars we save by having our legislators and judges bought and funded by private corporations. After all, the ability to own property, such as legislators or even mere ideas, is one of our basic values.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[TamMan2000]

It isn't a "Bush" deficit because we already had an increasing deficit before he moved into office!

Does anyone else remember Bush using enormous budget surplus predictions as justification for a tax cut?

Why?

[pubjames]

I know that nobody likes taxes, but given that some taxes have to be collected, why a special ban on "internet taxes"? I pay special taxes when I take a flight, for instance, why does the airline industry have to suffer special taxes but the internet industry doesn't?

Now, something like a tax per email would of course just be dumb, but would a fixed household-based tax on broadband be dumb? Especially bearing in mind that the gov. needs to police the internet to a certain extent (to those that say they don't, get back to me when your Mom gets their banking details stolen or your friend gets defrauded by a mock ebay site).

Re:Why?

[SmallFurryCreature]

You already pay a tax on broadband silly. Well at you least in europe. It is called a sales tax. or BTW or VAT or whatever other name they have given to the tax applied to everything that is sold.

What a internet tax would be is a tax not on your vacuum cleaner but on how many times you hover with it as well.

An email tax would be a double tax. First you pay for the bandwidth, then for the use of that bandwidth? Like charging me BTW for a loaf of bread, butter, and toppings. Then charging me a tax when I make a sandwich out of it and eat it myself.

missed opportunity on SPAM fight

[scsirob]

As much as I'd hate to see internet tax, it might be a mechanism to fight SPAM. Introducing a tax of 1 penny for each e-mail sent would set the average user back about $1 - $5 a month.

SPAM houses would pay through the nose... I thin this would be a small investment for all of us to make junk mail less profitable.

Re:missed opportunity on SPAM fight

[FrostedWheat]

SPAM houses would pay through the nose

Yes, because as we know most of the spam we get comes from the USA. Really tho, that's just a stupid idea. Even for fighting USA-based spammers.

Go stand in the corner!

Would Taxing Be Feasable?

[kaellinn18]

Would putting a tax on internet transactions even be feasable? Granted, it would be relatively easy to track sales from huge companies like Amazon, but what about the individual selling stuff off of their own website eBay style? You would literally have to track down every single website that's selling something and make sure they're obeying the tax laws. Also, what about sites that are international? Would these laws be enforcable for us buying things from other countries or people in other countries buying things from us? The internet is a global entity, not just in the USA. I can see taxing e-mails, but I'm not sure how you would effectively tax online sales. Please feel free to explain to me how it could work, because I am interested.

Don't forget the aircraft carrier...

[alexhmit01]

The American military has lots of excesses from the cold war. We have too large of a surface and submarine fleet. Without the former Soviet fleet, there is no need for our forces to be SO biased towards responding to a nuclear first strike (where first strike is designed to incapacitate our land-based missiles from responding), etc.

We should probably shift more of the money from excessive stealth fighters (there are no dogfights anymore, we just need a first wave to take out anti-aircraft response) towards more troops and better equipment for them.

However, if you are going to talk about the American military, it's our aircraft carriers that let us rule the world. That is how we can project power across the globe. It let's us send air power anywhere.

I look at things in Europe and the US the way children and adults see life. Children see the next purchase as a video game, and that their parents should pay for it. Adult understand that they need to work hard, earn a living, and pay for things like food and shelter.

You expect others to pay for your desires, we understand that we need to pay our own way.

You would think that 50 years of the US subsidizing Europes existance, plus the thousand year head start on civilization would put your standard of living tremendously beyond our own. However, the opposite is the case. Somehow the side affect of expecting others to pay for your lifestyle has resulting in productivity hits that are more significant than the savings from having us subsidize your defense.

Money has to be made, by producing goods and services desired. Anything granted by the government is a hand-out from money taken at gun point from those that produce wealth. Money is an indicator of productivity, nothing more.

Alex