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

States Rights

[Dancin_Santa]

Don't mean to be a party pooper, but your state is still able to charge you a sales tax on all catalog and web transactions.

No one will come knock on your door if you don't pay, but it's nice to have that weigh on your mind, you tax-evading thief.

Re:States Rights

[freeefalln]

'levying taxes unique to the Internet.' The

Unique to the internet. that is whats important here. we all know that sales tax is long overdue on the internet, it will come into effect sooner or later.

Re:States Rights

[tbase]

If Washington is like any other state that I've dealt with that has a sales tax, you are supposed to pay sales tax on everything you buy out of state. That's what the original poster of this thread was talking about, I believe.

The out of state companies just aren't collecting sales tax for those states because 1) they don't have to, and 2) because it would be an accounting nightmare- especially for states that have different or additional sales tax for different counties (like NY and FL). I know for a fact that in Maine and Florida, if you buy something out of state, either through catalog or Internet sales (and presumably while on vacation as well), you're supposed to be a good little tax payer and send them a check at the end of the year. Of course that doesn't stop New Hampshire from putting Liquor Stores right across the state line so you don't have to drive any farther than you have to in order to get "tax-free" booze.

The problem is that on big ticket items, it really hurts the local guys, especially if they're near the border, or if the item doesn't cost much to ship (i.e., memory and CPU's). 6% or 7% tax savings can easily cover shipping or a trip across the line. But what most people don't realize is that they are legally obligated to cough up the tax on these items too.

I think the only practical way to implement collection of Sales Tax for online sales would be if all the states and counties who have a sales tax would agree on a single amount to be paid to the State, who would then determine and distribute what (if any) portion goes to what county.

Many Internet retailers (Adobe, for one) already charge sales tax to everyone who lives in a state that has it. Although not required, it keeps the states happy, and also their retail channel who doesn't have a choice if they are in a sales-tax state.

So it's not really a loophole, it's more like swapping copyrighted music. Most people either don't know it's illegal, or they don't think they can get caught so they don't care.

Re:States Rights

[Mattcelt]

Since when is a tax "long overdue"??!? Isn't paying 1/2 - 1/3 of your salary enough? One of the reasons Internet sales have been so phenomenal is that there aren't the same burdens - financial (for consumers) and administrative (for businesses) that exist elsewhere.

Also, there has been a ban on interstate sales tax in many jurisdictions for many, many years. If you order something by mail from Oregon and you live in New Jersey, you don't pay sales tax. So what makes you think an Internet sales tax is justified? What about the New York vendors who have to compete with the Deleware vendors with the same product? The consumer is going to go to a place with a lower sales tax rate - they will avoid the ~8% premium they would have to pay buying from a New York vendor.

Incidentally, any place that still had a ban on interstate sales taxes would not be able to charge sales tax on Internet purchases, because it would violate the "unique" part of this bill. So they would only be able to collect on sales within their own state, which means that consumers will go out of state when possible to get their goods.

Still think an Internet sales tax is a good idea?

Re:States Rights

[princewally]

Also, there has been a ban on interstate sales tax in many jurisdictions for many, many years. If you order something by mail from Oregon and you live in New Jersey, you don't pay sales tax.

In most states, you do have to pay sales tax if you order something from another state. The company isn't required to charge the tax. You are supposed to get an additional form from the state and declare your purchases yourself.

Re:States Rights

[NickFitz]

Here in the European Union, it arrived as of July 1st 2003. Purchases made online within the EU are liable to VAT (Value Added Tax, the EU version of Sales Tax), even if the supplier of the goods is based and shipping from outside the EU.

Some details here.

Re:States Rights

[BlankTim]

I don't get this. I've paid sales tax on *everything* I've ever bought on the internet. From my computer to my games to my music CD's to my books to my swedish made penis enlarger pump to my discount viagra to my clean underwear EVERYTHING. Maybe it's just me, but who cares if net sales are taxed? All I care about is that they're taxed goes to the correct state, and that I can claim credit for taxes paid to another state on my state 1040 form at the end of the year.

Re:States Rights

[sketerpot]

Wait---you're supposed to fill out a state form to buy something from another state? That's messed up.

Re:States Rights

[pyite]

This is a touchy area. I think technically you're supposed to pay sales tax to your state when you bring anything in from out of state. I find that to be a load of crap personally as "only Congress has the power to regulate interstate commerce."

Re:States Rights

[glorinc]

Well, an internet vendor must charge you sales tax on an internet purchase if they have a "significant presence" in the state you are living in. For example, walmart.com will most likely charge sales tax directly in every state since you can't fling a dead cat without hitting one of their stores. Bob's House of Swedish Penis Enlarger Pumps, based in Nebraska only will only charge you tax if you are purchasing it while living in NE.

Re:States Rights

[xtheunknown]

Actually, in Massachusetts, they might come knocking on your door.

Starting in the 2003 tax year you will have to answer a question on your state tax form that asks if you have purchased any goods from outside the state and if so, how much?

Theorhetically, you are supposed to pay sales tax on goods purchased out-of-state, but there has never been a yes/no question on the form addressing this point. Previously you just didn't put anything down on the form, and they would never know.

Now if you answer No to the question, they can hold it against you later if they subpoena an out-of-state catalog or web site for sales records of customers from Massachusetts, and you are on that list but answered No.

This law just says that you can handle Internet taxing through other tax laws, not that you can't tax the Internet.

Re:States Rights

[Archfeld]

and delivery of that item doesn't use any existing infrastructure ? like the roads or such ?
As for the ban on taxes ? no not correct, they have had no mechanism for determing where you were, but nearly everystate has a law to the effect that you are responsible for paying your taxes and declaring the items taxable, it is you the consumer that is responsible for declaring what you bought, your failure to do so is not the seller's issue. If the evey get a standardized nation tax system I will assure you there will be forced taxes the day after.

Re:States Rights

[Anonymous Coward]

That is correct. It's called a "use tax", but it's basically the same thing. It's hard for them to enforce, however.

Re:States Rights

[psilotum]

FWIW, Oregon has no sales tax. To boost competition, Washington will not charge an Oregonian sales tax if she chooses to cross the border to buy a car, for example.

Re:States Rights

[ckaminski]

Massachusetts beat that whole thing by requiring you to pay sales tax on the car at the time of registration. First-use does not apply.

Bastards!
-Chris

Re:States Rights

[cayenne8]

I agree with you...I can't imagine people actually griping they DON'T have a tax on something yet. Aren't ya'll tired of paying so much of your salary to the govt.'s wealth redistribution system? Getting double and triple taxed on your earnings?

I mean, I don't mind contributing to the pot for general infrastructure...or to even help with those truly infirmed or elderly. However, I think the govt. takes MORE than enough money in now for that....

States and Feds need to learn to live within their means...I'm beginning to think the only way you can get them to trim budgets, and pay only for what is needed to defend the country, and keep infrastructure up is to dry up the tax well...no new taxes...cut old taxes. Then, as things get tight..forces the politico's to finally cut stupid programs, quit giving money from workers to able bodied people who won't work and are too stupid to put on a condom to keep from having illegitmate kids....

Re:States Rights

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

Spoken like a true right-winger... Something you fail to realize: most of the money is spent on "discretionary" things like war/military, tax cuts, etc... In any case, what you are saying will not accomplish anything because capitalism allows you to mortgage the future via debt. All you will be doing is running up the debt. Incidentally, that is what has been happening in 90% of the world, including USA. US debt will just keep going up, and up, and up, and up... until capitalism collapses :)

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:States Rights

[Matrix272]

I'll state right upfront that I'm not sure whether you're FOR or AGAINST an Internet sales tax, but I had a couple comments that other people might find interesting.

and delivery of that item doesn't use any existing infrastructure ? like the roads or such?

I'm sure you're not suggesting that the only way the government can afford to pay for highways and other roads is by with an Internet sales tax... are you? If so, then I'd be VERY interested to know exactly how the highway system has survived for the last 100 years or so. Also, if my federal income taxes aren't being used to pay for the roads that I use on a daily basis, what ARE they going towards? Most likely, they're going towards a whole host of things that I'll never see or have anything to do with. Please don't get this confused with greed... greed, in my opinion, is wanting something that doesn't rightfully belong to me. Wanting a benefit from the money I spent my time in earning isn't greed, it's the basis for property rights and as such, the whole Capitalist system.

To bring this back to the original point, if we established an Internet sales tax, and I purchased a $100 piece of software that I download and burn onto a CD (that I also bought at Best Buy and paid sales tax on, I might add), how would the Internet sales tax portion of that purchase be used? Surely the government isn't suggesting that they take over the Internet infrastructure like they have the railroads. If the government doesn't control the Internet, and the government wants to tax purchases made on the Internet, where does that money go? Would they give that money to the ISP that hosts the website I made my purchase from, effectively increasing profit by 8% (or so)? Doesn't seem right to me... The only way they could justify it is to take over the Internet infrastructure and become the sole ISP in the country. I DEFINITELY don't want THAT. Damn... talk about Big Brother.

If the evey get a standardized nation tax system I will assure you there will be forced taxes the day after.

There's a good proposal for a national tax system in the works right now. You can read about it here.

Re:States Rights

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

Something you fail to realize: most of the money is spent on "discretionary" things, but in an incredibly inefficient way: useless/counterproductive liberal bureaucrats who can't be fired and have 12 assistants, incredibly lavish facilities, contracts for unions that go way over budget and take 5 times as long to accomplish simple crap, $50 billion in fraud annually because the General Accounting Office can't figure out where the tax dollars are being spent, sweet Jesus I could go on and on and on...

hmm... what does this have to do with the left? You go and clean up the govt. I'm not going to stop you...

Any Washington insider will tell you that w/o the pro-growth Bush tax cuts congress would have spent that money anyway, just on wasteful, non-stimulative pork projects.

First you bash the politicians for being inefficient and hoarding the money, and now you listen to these sames guys to support your trickle-down-in-1-million-years tax-cut theory?

The idea is run the right kind of deficits now (tax cuts and pro-private sector-growth spending), hoping the resulting economic growth will overcome them later, like it always has.

Except the capitalists you worship fail to tell you one thing: the original debt has still not been paid off. If corporations, who are all capitalist, were following your advice, they would be bankrupt within 10 years.

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:States Rights

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

Well, for one thing it's the flip side of what you termed 'right-wing.' der!

err.. no it's not. I don't see anyone on the left supporting the inefficiencies you speak of.

In any case, every single major tax cut in the past century has been followed immediately by economic growth and within, including Bush's, which have lifted us out of the tech-bubble recession.

lol I guess falsities turn into truth in your fantasy world. USA is NOT out of the recession. And the "lifting" you talk of was goin gto happen anyway. In any case, even those that are in favour of the tax cuts claim that it will take 3 or 4 years for them to make an impact.

What would you do? RAISE taxes? When has that EVER created growth?

I don't know if raising taxes ever creates growth but spending certainly does. Right now, Europe is trying to get out of the recession by spending, while USA is relying on tax-cuts. Let's see which one works.

BTW, you must be living in a delusional world if you think USA is out of the recession. According to (capitalist) economists, it may be--but there are tons of unemployed and consumer spending is weak...

Since the national debt has expanded WAY more than the size of the national debt, and most of that debt is owed to Americans, it was certainly worth it.

There is a typo there but anyway, your point is understood. Just the fact that most of the debt is owned by the Americans doens't mean it can be conveniently ignored. Debt is debt! It won't go away just because YOU own it instead of some foreigner!

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:States Rights

[wmspringer]

err.. no it's not. I don't see anyone on the left supporting the inefficiencies you speak of.

Well, no, but the left certainly likes to ignore their enormous costs so they can complain they don't have enough money for their ineffectual government programs.

My understanding is that under Bush, the federal government has grown to its largest size, EVER....and yet the republicans still claim to be the party of small government. Go figure.

Exactly which ineffectual government program is it that you want to get rid of?

Re:States Rights

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

YOur proposed shift towards pure capitalism will fail...

Some of the stuff you have mentioned will simply create massive discrepancies in wealth. This will result in class wars (of course, you probably wouldn't believe a socialist like me :) )...

As far as letting people invest in the stock market. You just better hope that you don't get into a long recession or deflation. Japan, a capitalist country by all standards, has been in a deflation for something like 10 years. I haven't kept up to date but the Japanese stock market index (ie. all blue chips) was at a 10 year low. If such a thing happened with social security, millions would literally be out on the street...

Sivaram Velauthapillai

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.

Re:Choice quote...

[bs_02_06_02]

This bill will also cure indigestion, poor circulation, and the common cold. It will also quiet squeeky wheels and keep your toes warm on cold winter nights.

Come on people, do you really trust politicians?

These politicians created a DO NOT CALL list that allows everyone BUT cold-calling businesses to call you... and people were dumb enough to sign up.

These are also the same people who want to create an OPT-OUT spam bill. They want to legitimize spam. Think about what that will do to your Inbox.

Re:Choice quote...

[dkermit007]

Believe me...this certainly didn't get passed because it was the "right" thing to do. Too many corporations would stand to lose way too much if various taxes were applied to the internet. This buisness-friendly administration we have rarely does anything without some kind of hidden agenda for big buisnesses that give big campaign $$$.

Re:A good move

[Anonymous Coward]

"But it stops various states from trying to sneak in taxes raises when people aren't looking."

Yeah, they'd only waste it on stuff like schools, hospitals, arts, the police etc. I mean look at Scandinavia! I bet they wish they had the levels of crime, truency, teenage pregnancies, murder and such cultured, easy going people as us Americans.

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!

[Stiletto]

1/3? I don't know what tax bracket you're in, but after Fed, SS, Medicare, State, Local, property tax, Sales tax, auto registration, and other various fees, most of us in the U.S. pay over 50% of our salaries to the gov.

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

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[cwernli]

In a country where we roughly pay an average of 1/3 of our salaries to variuos governmental entities.

It is my impression that you are actually quite lucky. In the country I currently live in (Italy) a whopping 43% gets deducted from my salary even before I get it. Of the other 57% percent, I probably spend half for a living, where 20% VAT is applied - therefore I pay almost 50% of taxes.

<rant>And what makes me really sick is to see how the money does not get used, but is merely vanishing in all kinds of nonsense...</rant>

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[Apreche]

Yeah, that's the thing. The dems always want to tax everything so they can spend money on all kinds of programs. And while I like the programs, I don't like getting everything taxed. 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.

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. They should change the taxes to match the current economic situation. And bush's tax cut was very much not the correct decision to help our economy.

But staying on topic, thank god there will never be an internet tax. If ever there was an internet tax there would be a bigger uproar than when the RIAA decided to sue a 12 year old girl. So, hooray, we are saved. But... does this law say anything about paying sales tax for goods purchased over the net? If I have to start paying sales tax to amazon and such that would royally blow. A law clearly stating that sales tax should not be levied on goods purchased in e-tailers would be quite excellent.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[CGP314]

Yeah, socialists really hate a free flow of ideas.

::rolls eyes::

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[King Babar]

1/3? I don't know what tax bracket you're in, but after Fed, SS, Medicare, State, Local, property tax, Sales tax, auto registration, and other various fees, most of us in the U.S. pay over 50% of our salaries to the gov.

In a word, no we don't. Not if by "most of us" you mean "most US taxpayers". For a decently readable account of this and other economic "facts", there's a piece in the NY Times (free registration blah blah).

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[perly-king-69]

Here in Europe whilst we do have healthcare free at the point of delivery, you Americans do have some wonderful ships, aircraft, tanks, missiles etc.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[Evil Adrian]

Uh, YOU do some research -- show us some documentation.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[cybermace5]

Nice troll. But the real point of this bill was, if you think more than 5 seconds about it, to indeed tax the Internet. The bill is supposed to ban taxes unique to the Internet. For example, a "web site tax" would not be allowed. But each and every tax that exists in the brick-and-mortar world, which could possibly be applied to some parallel on the Internet...you'd better believe the taxes are coming down the pipe. This is just a smokescreen.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, socialists really hate a free flow of ideas.

You mean like campus speech codes, hate-crimes legislation where the thought behind a criminal act increases the penalties, the villification of blacks like Clarence Thomas who don't think the way they're supposed to?

Nahh, there's none of that from the left...

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[kennykb]

Can you remember the last time that Congress actually prohibited a form of taxation?

Congress isn't prohibiting it. Congress is reserving it to the Feds. Nasty Congress! Didn't your kindergarten teacher teach you to share?

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!

[goldspider]

"...you'd better believe the taxes are coming down the pipe. This is just a smokescreen."

We all knew that; at no time did the government suggest that no taxes would be applied to the Internet (such as sales taxes). But would you rather that we were hit with both a sales tax AND a "web site tax"?

I for one am glad that isn't the case.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[*weasel]

the deficit as a percentage of GDP (~4%) is not unreasonable whatsoever. it's nowhere near the high end of where america has been (~13%), particularly in times of war or recession.

our deficit just is not that big of a deal in the economic sense, its just low-hanging fruit in the political sense because it's a big number when unqualified.

our unemployment, overtime, privacy laws, and foreign policies however are big deals.

please keep proper perspective when criticizing, and never trust what even the mass media is parotting.

the media has their own self-interests; primarily in inventing easy-to-understand stories when there aren't any. the economy being a complex beast causes some woefully misrepresented non-stories to go center-stage.

there are plenty of cricisms for any administration, or our government as a whole. try to focus on the legitimate ones.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[scruffy]

Maybe in isolation this action is justified, but it's stupid to keep on cutting taxes while the US is running a whopping deficit and the states and cities are struggling to balance their budgets.

There are a few idiots who keep on parroting "cutting taxes increases tax revenues". If that is true, then cutting taxes to zero will create huge revenues. In fact, the government should levy no taxes and then give money away! Hopefully, it is obvious that "cutting taxes increases tax revenues" only works if the economy increases faster than taxes decrease. So far that is not happening.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[goldspider]

"but it's stupid to keep on cutting taxes while the US is running a whopping deficit and the states and cities are struggling to balance their budgets."

You're correct, but perhaps these states and cities should look into cutting spending on non-essential bullshit pork programs, instead of bullying taxpayers into paying more.

Have you noticed that every time a government entity (especially county/city level) finds itself lacking in funds, it always threatens to cut the most essential services like police, fire and EMS services to scare people into accepting yet another tax increase? That's not responsible governance, that's called extortion.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[DickBreath]

Of course, socialists and Bush-bashers are going to hate this on principal...

Talk about Flaimbait! As well as just being plain wrong.

As an Official Bush Hater (tm), I find this to be welcome news. Any socialists care to comment?

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[Beatbyte]

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

Yeah the only problem is, this was voted by the House of Rep. Bush hasn't seen the proposal yet.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[cwernli]

the deficit as a percentage of GDP (~4%) is not unreasonable

Without wanting to initiate a professional discussion on economics (I don't have to much of a clue here, and sometimes I have the impression that nobody does), I would just like to point out that the upper deficit limit as imposed by the EU council is 2 percent. This might be right, it might be wrong, some countries (such as France and Germany, and probably Italy too) are having a larger deficit - but at least Europe is aiming to not exceed those 2%.

our unemployment, overtime, privacy laws, and foreign policies however are big deals.

I couldn't agree more. Except that I'ld add environmental issues too (do you remember that Kyoto protocol ?).

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!

[*weasel]

the EU tries to maintain -its- deficit at 2 percent, as it exists -in-addition- to the deficit of its member states. as i understand the EU (and IANA-european lawyer), it doesn't have the authority to curb member state taxation/spending. The EU's deficit cap was enacted to ensure the member states that the EU couldn't vastly outspend its means, crumble, and saddle them with vast debt.

the kyoto protocol (yes i read it) is another misrepresented problem. the reason the US did not sign the treaty was that while it had good guidelines for developed nations, it allowed undeveloped nations to vastly exceed those guidelines, and more deplorably, allowed them to -sell- the rights to exceed those quotas to foreign businesses operating in their country.

essentially it would create an economic landrush to relocate the old cheapest, dirtiest, most environmentally dangerous plants to these nations who thus-far have been blessed by -not- having been raped by industrial mistakes.

it was not because big business in america would be hurt. our corporations would jump at the chance to have a legal requirement to relocate to mexico, central and south america to plunder their environment. you think the rain forests are hurting now?

if you recognize the value of saving the environment, you know that the peripheral jobs gained in those countries by the influx of those industries (now largely automated) would not be a reasonable tradeoff for the extensive damage they'd do.

kyoto was more a "Not In My BackYard" approach to environmentalism than it was a solution.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[xxdinkxx]

>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.

Actually, no. The internet needs to stay as tax free as possible for now. What those 'bush-bashers' don't like is the stupid budgeting decisions that have gone on. We have gone from the largest surplus to the largest defecit in less then 3 years!... the misappropriation of money going to the war on terror is for another day.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[smack_attack]

Jayson Blair did't plaigarize, he made things up.

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?

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[salesgeek]

It is my impression that you are actually quite lucky. In the country I currently live in (Italy) a whopping 43% gets deducted from my salary even before I get it.

But you have great health care, right?

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[dacarr]

The way it sounds, this is intended to block the mythical taxes. You know that chain letter your lusers send around periodically telling you that the USPS is going to tax email? Yeah, that sort of thing. Thing is, though, if this is law, I don't expect the chain letters to stop.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[cwernli]

Yup, but no smart bombs.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[El_Ge_Ex]

Trust me, you'll end up paying that Bush deficit eventually

I've been proposing the "stupidity" tax for years now!

Only problem is: Then no one would ever run for public office. :)

-B

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[drooling-dog]

What those 'bush-bashers' don't like is the stupid budgeting decisions that have gone on. We have gone from the largest surplus to the largest defecit in less then 3 years!

Bush himself may indeed be stupid, but what the repubs are now doing to the budget hardly is. They are deliberately -- let me say that again -- deliberately trying to precipitate a fiscal crisis as a means of eliminating programs that they can't confront politically; e.g., social security and medicare.

This will work as long as lenders around the world continue to have enough confidence to buy our growing mountain of debt at low interest rates. And if they don't? Well, just look at Argentina...

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[guacamolefoo]

Can you remember the last time that Congress actually prohibited a form of taxation?

Poll tax. The Twenty Fourth Amendment was passed by Congress on August 27, 1962, and it was ratified by the several States in early 1964.

GF.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[guacamolefoo]

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.

Not necessarily true. The tax burden can be minimized by a deficit. Here's how:

1) If there is no deficit, spending temptations explode, and expensive spending proposals will be pushed. If there is a deficit, it is less likely that spending programs will be passed, because there is a legitimate cover in "We can't feed the poor children, because we'll leave them with a big national debt." The GOP realized long ago that public choice theory and the federal budget process makes it impossible to cut spending directly, so by cutting taxes and creating a deficit, they have helped to curb spending in the only feasible manner.

2. What about the deficit, you say? What deficit? Sure, there is a small one right now (say $500,000,000,000.00 per year), but this is insignificant. Why? Monetization of the federal debt. With an inflation rate of approximately 2.5% and a federal debt of approximately $7,000,000,000,000.00, the ongoing devaluation of the dollar over time decreases the real value of the national debt by $175,000,000,000.00 per year.

If you look at the difference ($500 - 175, or $325/year), you have a deficit that is minimal as a percentage of GDP and one that is much smaller in real terms than anything that happened in the late eighties or early nineties. No, I won't end up paying the "Bush deficit". And no, you do not need to cut spending to reduce the tax burden. You can reduce it over time by applying downward pressure on spending by keeping a nice little pet deficit bogeyman in the closet to scare the public.

GF.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[adam613]

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.

Hey! I'm a Bush-basher, and I think this is a great law. It's what we've all been saying on slashdot for years: don't write new laws for the internet, reuse existing ones.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[Dun Malg]

1/3? I don't know what tax bracket you're in, but after Fed, SS, Medicare, State, Local, property tax, Sales tax, auto registration, and other various fees, most of us in the U.S. pay over 50% of our salaries to the gov.

In a word, no we don't. Not if by "most of us" you mean "most US taxpayers". For a decently readable account of this and other economic "facts", there's a piece in the NY Times (free registration blah blah).

In another word, YES WE DO. The NY Times article is about income taxes. When you add in fuel, sales, and SS taxes, it starts to look more like 50%.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[mOdQuArK!]

They are deliberately -- let me say that again -- deliberately trying to precipitate a fiscal crisis as a means of eliminating programs that they can't confront politically; e.g., social security and medicare.

That seems more like a conspiracy theory. Unless the Republicans are supremely confident in their ability to manage the PR, if they are successful in destroying those programs, the resultant backlash would cause the Republican Party to cease to be a viable party in American politics for severel generations. (I suppose if they can get the Democrats to take the blame, then they might think it was worth it.)

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[pmz]

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

They change their story every six months on a number of topics, and the press eats it up. It is so damn transparent that it is disgusting that the public isn't vomiting every day from it--it's as if they'll eat shit and like it because it came in a candy wrapper.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[polyphemus-blinder]

Yes, I do. And in fact, that's what he's been spending all this time. Right or wrong, the situation is that throughout the 90's, the Republicans failed in their attempts to keep taxes from increasing, but the Democrats failed in their attempts to increase spending; so we had high taxes with relatively low spending. The surplus was the result of this strange stalemate.

Being able to spend the surplus was the prize of the 2000 election. So Bush is doing just that. The Dems are just mad because he gets to spend it protecting our country rather than giving free pills to non-poor old people.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[pmz]

And what makes me really sick is to see how the money does not get used, but is merely vanishing in all kinds of nonsense...

Oh, you said Italy...you almost had me convinced you are from South Carolina.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[IM6100]

I would be satisfied with Bush using the bright blue color of the sky as a justification for a tax cut.

Tax cuts don't have to be justified. Taking people's money away and spending it for them has to be justified. There shouldn't be a single tax in place that doesn't have to be explicitly re-authorized by legislative vote every five years or so.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[Jhon]

Pull out a calculator and your pay stub from dec 2002.

Now. Check your Federal income tax, state income tax, SSI, unemployment, etc etc. Calculate all those together.

Now, figure out how much you spent last year at the supermarket -- electronics store, etc etc etc (sales tax). Calculate that.

Now, check your utility bills -- figure out how much you paid for gas, water, power, telphone service, cell phone, pager, etc. Calculate that.

Now, figure out how much you spent on fuel for your car. Calculate how much tax you paid for THAT last year.

Car registration, professional state licence fees, property taxes, etc. Calculate that.

God help you if your a smoker.

Add all those taxes together and divide that by your income last year. You should end up with 50% (+/- a few % points). Last year, I paid out over 52% of what I made in taxes. I itemize everything, too. EVERYTHING.

I am not wealthy, either. My wife and I have just spent the last several years saving for a house that will further eat close to 1/3 of our income (whats left after taxes) as a house payment.

There needs to be more equity in taxation.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[Jhon]

Now, check your utility bills -- figure out how much you paid for gas, water, power, telphone service, cell phone, pager, etc. Calculate that.

I meant to calculate the taxes PAID on those -- Cell phones are around $120/year in state and federal taxes alone.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[pmz]

I would be satisfied with Bush using the bright blue color of the sky as a justification for a tax cut.

I agree, but the point is that the administration really isn't being very consistent and/or honest. I'll hear things on NPR one day and think "didn't they just say the exact opposite in the Spring?"

As far as taxes go, they need to cut spending accordingly. When that happens with a Republican or Democratic administration, bright-orange monkeys will probably fly out of my ass. They simply have too many special interests and political agendas to actually be concerned with running the government for the People's sake. The last decade or more has actually seen a number of power-grab attempts by the government (nationalized healthcare in the 90's and again after 2004, the war on terrorism now, and probably more subtle things as well).

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[eples]

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

I also remember the "Defecit Clock" in Times Square was taken down in the late 90's only to go back up under Bush.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[eples]

Here's a a page with the whole recent history. As recently as September 2000 we had record surplus, more than $230 billion for fiscal year 2000.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[GlassHeart]

Tax cuts don't have to be justified. Taking people's money away and spending it for them has to be justified.

If you pay any attention at all, you'll realize that Bush is not cutting services, only taxes. The government is going into deficit spending. What Bush has done is to borrow money on your behalf, and that absolutely needs to be justified by a responsible leader.

This is exactly like taking out a loan to start a business. The money you borrow needs to help you make more profit than you have to pay back in interest, or you might as well not do anything at all. When a government cuts taxes (especially when it cuts selectively), it needs to explain how the cuts that are funded by borrowing are going to make more money in the long run than the interest it has to pay. For example, if the government borrows money to build a new bridge, it needs to explain how the bridge will help commerce, or save transportation costs and time, and so on.

I would be satisfied with Bush using the bright blue color of the sky as a justification for a tax cut.

That suggests, more than anything else, that your judgement is clouded by your ideology. There's nothing inherently bad with a tax cut, but nothing inherently good, either. The half-trillion dollar question is, is the government simply more efficient (doing the same with less money), cutting services, or borrowing money. In the latter two cases, a responsible citizen needs to ask what services are getting cut, or how borrowing money is better than not.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[firewrought]

I welcome anything that potentially keeps money in my pocket.

Don't think of this as a law that's going to save you money on taxes (even though it might). The real benefit of this law is that the federal goverment won't impose stupid taxes (like on bandwidth) that introduce friction on society's abilitity to communicate, cooperate, and computate. When these things are frictionless, the economy is in a much better situation to create real wealth. As an example, consider how local telephone service in the U.S. is billed at a flat rate wheras POTS in many other countries are billed at high per-time rates... this certainly played a role in the U.S.'s rise to power over the past 50 years (especially in terms of how quickly the internet was adopted by home users).

For the best potiential of economic growth, governments should make it as feasible as possible to (1) travel, (2) communicate, and (3) augment our higher brain functions with computers. By preventing the significant overhead that would be introduced with taxing bandwidth, emails, etc., the U.S. government helps these goals, and it also avoids the Turing stickiness of information systems (e.g., hacks like "callback services" which exploit the naievety of tariff-makers).

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

lol.. that's the most idiotic argument ever presented for going against Kyoto...

essentially it would create an economic landrush to relocate the old cheapest, dirtiest, most environmentally dangerous plants to these nations who thus-far have been blessed by -not- having been raped by industrial mistakes.

This is ALREADY happening. There is nothing different now that is stopping this. So I don't know where you get this view that it would have actually INCREASED under Kyoto...

If poor countries were able to sell "pollution credits" it is even worse now. NOW, there isn't even any system. A company can simply move to any country that it can buy out...

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[GlassHeart]

Quite simply, the government was never intended to [...]

With all due respect to the American "founding fathers", whose many ideas put them centuries before their time, they don't have all the answers. Copyright, as they considered it, did not include the possibility of very cheap exact digital copies of artworks, or computer software. Government, as they envisioned it, did not include the advances in telecommunications and transportation that could allow for a more effective federal government (and less state rights). Nevermind that they were not that ahead of their time in terms of women's rights or the rights of "colored people", and certainly could not be imagining the legal or societal effects of asexual human reproduction. They were, however, intelligent enough to know that they don't know everthing, and left provisions for the US Constitution to be amended.

Point is, Confucius was a great sage, but you still don't want to take his every word literally. The question is, what do you want the government to be? Just say it, and stop hiding behind the "founding fathers" or the Bible whenever it is convenient.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

I just love how capitalists love to minimize the debt problem. The fact that the survivability of capitalism depends on preventing the collapse of debt probably has something to do with it.

Point 1... Attempting to curb spending by cutting taxes is the most idiotic thing ever. Why? It doesn't work. Captitalism allows you to mortgage your future via debt so people will just borrow more. Look at USA in the 70's, 80's, 90's, and 2000's and you'll find that people just borrow even more. As long as those in power (ie. capitalists, bankers, investors, etc) keep lending moeny to USA, it will keep borrowing...

I don't want to even go into point #2... I just love how economists, who are mostly capitalists, ignore govt income and love to concentrate on GDP. It works so well in their perfect nonsensical world. At the end of the day, GDP is not what is going to pay the debt--it will be govt income. To illustrate my point, consider this hypothetical example. Let's say the govt shrinks and becomes very small (ie. lower spending, less taxes, etc but LOWER income). Is the govt better off from a debt point of view? The answer is a resounding NO! Since the govt income is significantly lower, it will have a hard time paying off its massive debt. BUT if you measure it as a percentage of GDP, you would think everything is still the same.

I just find it funny how economists brainwash everyone into buying into their simplistic GDP-related view. In the modern day, where you have powerful computers, which can measure govt income and things like that, what reason is there to not look at more complex things? Economists are mostly a bunch of fools so I don't expect them to change but I expected better of them. This is like how in the early 1900's, economists used RAW GDP figures to measure countries. Well, that turned out to be completely wrong. Nowadays, people use GDP figures adjusted for purchasing parity. I wonder when they will actually start looking at government income...

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[Chibi Merrow]

Narf... There's no good economic reason for you not to pay sales tax on something bought online... If you don't want to pay sales taxes, petition your local government to abolish them...

And bush's tax cut was very much not the correct decision to help our economy.
And what grounds do you have for saying that other than someone on TV told you so?

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[goldspider]

I thought I as pretty clear what I want my government to be; a body that allows me to live my life as I want to, provides an environment that allows me to prosper, and protects me from those who don't want me to exercise my freedoms. Nothing more, nothing less.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[guacamolefoo]

Point 1... Attempting to curb spending by cutting taxes is the most idiotic thing ever. Why? It doesn't work. Captitalism allows you to mortgage your future via debt so people will just borrow more.

Actually, one of the ways we might avoid the cost of a national single-payer health system is that the money isn't there for it. Look at what Dick Gephart is pushing in his campaign if you don't believe me. The fact is that the deficit stalking horse gives cover to moderate democrats to run from their party brethren on social spending.

The alternative, of course, is cutting spending by cutting spending. Politically, it just doesn't work. Public choice theory (James Q. Wilson, et al) tells us this pretty conclusively.

I don't want to even go into point #2... I just love how economists, who are mostly capitalists, ignore govt income and love to concentrate on GDP.

You are confusing capitalism with representative democracy. Therein lies the source of your confusion. Government spending is not so much a function of capitalism as it is of the political will of the majority of voters and corporate contributors. Let your cynicism dictate your views on who has the most influence, of course.

At the end of the day, GDP is not what is going to pay the debt--it will be govt income.

Wrong. At the end of the day, the debt will be paid off by dollars. This may or may not have any relation to GDP at that time.

To illustrate my point, consider this hypothetical example. Let's say the govt shrinks and becomes very small (ie. lower spending, less taxes, etc but LOWER income).

Government will never shrink. It may grow less quickly than the economy as long as there is a good, fat deficit in place (because of tax cuts). This may make it smaller as a percentage of GDP, but I am pretty comfortable out on my limb stating that in absolute, real dollar terms, government will never shrink barring a significant political sea change.

Is the govt better off from a debt point of view?

Yes. Debt service as a percentage of dollar GDP is a significant statistic.

Since the govt income is significantly lower, it will have a hard time paying off its massive debt. BUT if you measure it as a percentage of GDP, you would think everything is still the same.

1. Who cares if the debt is ever paid off?
2. The US debt is largely owed to social security anyway.
3. I would be highly uncomfortable having the US government own private assets, such as stock shares, as it would politicize private enterprise and ultimately amount to nationalization of industry. I would much rather that the feds invest in government debt. If there is a problem down the road with matching benefits to expenses, that might result in a significant enough crisis to cause meaningful reform of transfer payments, such as social security.
4. If GDP grows and the debt does not grow as fast as GDP, there will never be a public debt problem in the US, regardless of what happens with the deficits. You are conflating the idea that government income shrinking has something to do with GDP. Govt revenues may shrink as a percentage of GDP but be more than adequate to cover debt service. Shrinking as a percentage of GDP and being sufficient to service debt obligations may have some correlation, but they are not the same thing by a longshot.

Nowadays, people use GDP figures adjusted for purchasing parity.

My personal favorite is the Big Mac index.

I wonder when they will actually start looking at government income...

I look at it every year. It's in the back of the instructions for the 1040. What's the problem? What's not being measured? I just don't follow you here, and I think it's because you aren't making any sense.

GF.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[eatdave13]

Cut taxes then cut spending, not cut taxes then increase spending.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[Chibi Merrow]

That doesn't have anything to do with the economy, though... Besides, decreasing taxes increases revenue and Keynesian economics says governments should deficit spend during times of recession... Our deficit is currently *very* small compared to the GDP (as many have pointed out) so you'll have to come up with something better than that.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

Yeah.. I don't know what any of this has to do with socialism. If it were a progressive tax vs regressive or something like that then maybe it is an issue. But not taxing the internet is totally irrelvant. I don't think anyone really wants to see the internet being taxed...

This is really a corporate matter. I'll bet that the decision was won after battles between one corporate sector vs another.

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

You are confusing capitalism with representative democracy. Therein lies the source of your confusion. Government spending is not so much a function of capitalism as it is of the political will of the majority of voters and corporate contributors.

Maybe if countries were running democracies, you may be right. But countries like USA are nothing more than PLUTOCRACIES--governments controlled by the elite. Majority of the voters? lol Just keep believing that you live in a democratic paradise :( The elites, who are capitalists, backed by large corporations, bankers, economists et al, control USA. These guys are practicing capitalism. Therefore, capitalism is partly to blame. As a matter of fact, the success and failure of capitalism is intertwind with your so-called "representative democracy"... I know you are not practicing PURE capitalism but it still is capitalism...

At the end of the day, the debt will be paid off by dollars. This may or may not have any relation to GDP at that time.

hmm... govt income = function of dollars...

Government will never shrink.

yeah... that's why it was supposed to be a hypothetical scenario... I don't expect the US govt to shrink, especially given that it is an IMPERIAL power. Imperial powers keep getting bigger and stronger and simply collapse at some point and don't really shrink...

Debt service as a percentage of dollar GDP is a significant statistic.

for now...

1. Who cares if the debt is ever paid off?

It doesn't have to be paid off completely but it has to be managed. I might be biased since I'm a socialist but I personally predict that the collapse of capitalism may be due to debt. In case, you haven't realized, debt/interest/etc are exponential. The interest will start to eat you away. A lot of poor countries are on the verge of collapse because they can't afford their debt payments. This might be an impossibility in USA--or is it?

The US debt is largely owed to social security anyway.

I'm not an American so you may know more than me....but... I thought most of the US debt is intergovernmental obligations (ie. between one level of gov to next). This may or may not be social obligations, but whatever it is, the states and cities will have big problems if the debt isn't paid.

3. I would be highly uncomfortable having the US government own private assets, such as stock shares, as it would politicize private enterprise and ultimately amount to nationalization of industry.

I don't want to get into that... but it's not like as if it's any different now. I mean, what's the difference between the govt subsidizing large corporations to the tune of billions of dollars vs outright owning them?

If GDP grows and the debt does not grow as fast as GDP, there will never be a public debt problem in the US, regardless of what happens with the deficits.

Well you are right... IF... the GDP grows faster than the debt growth+deficit, AND people are content paying moeny to service a blackhole, called interest...

My personal favorite is the Big Mac index.

I don't know if that was being sarcastic but the BigMacIndex is another one of those idiocies only capitalistic economists can invent. Don't these guys realize that marketing has a bigger impact on prices across countries than anything else?

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[GlassHeart]

I want my government to be; a body that allows me to live my life as I want to, provides an environment that allows me to prosper, and protects me from those who don't want me to exercise my freedoms.

Great, so you don't need to bring out the "founding fathers" to bolster your argument.

Reasonable people do disagree on what constitutes an "environment that allows me to prosper". Welfare, for example, is intended as a stopgap measure to help people get back on their feet. Affordable health care, for example, allows people (particularly the poor) to invest more of their resources towards education and other paths to prosperity. Scholarships and other forms of tuition assistance help people get out of the vicious cycle of poverty.

I'm not saying any of these programs are well maintained as they exist today. My main point is that citizens do differ on how much they want their government to do, and the intentions of the "founding fathers" are not particularly relevant here.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[goldspider]

\Wel"fare`\, n. [Well + fare to go, to proceed, to happen.] Well-doing or well-being in any respect; the enjoyment of health and the common blessings of life; exemption from any evil or calamity; prosperity; happiness.

Let's also recognize that PROMOTING the general welfare is vastly different from PROVIDING it.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[Danny Rathjens]

That's precisely why they are all split up. Because people are too dumb, lazy or apathetic to do simple arithmetic and realize how much they are really paying.

Coincidentally, I vaguely recall that large numbers of taxes nickel and diming us all was one of the reasons that prompted us to rebel against Britain.

I wonder if it is possible to calculate an average of what people really pay. Perhaps based upon governmental records that state total amounts pulled in compared with total amounts of personal income.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[Rob Simpson]

Hmm... 32.9% income tax (including federal/provincial/EI/CPP/etc.), and if I spent 100% of my money and all of it had PST and GST taken off that'd be 14.5% of the money left, or 9.73% of the total. Not including utility bills, because including stuff like power and cell phone bills would be insane, partly since I get pretty good rates for hydro here, and partly since this would be like including my entire rent as "tax" - hello? I don't have a car, and I don't smoke (I don't know even one pharmacist that smokes...cigarettes, anyway ;-) ). So, the total is 42.63%. And I live in Canada.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[TaraByte]

it's more like 50% when you add all the other taxes, such as social security, workman's comp, sales tax on everything you buy, telephone taxes, "911 fund" for airlines, etc.

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[Mike Hawk]

How's that free healthcare working out?I mean, the hospital I go to here in California has air conditioning...

Re:Finally, a step in the right direction!

[Olathe]

Inflation itself is a tax. A lot of people hold a lot of dollars. When those dollars are worth less a year from now, the value doesn't just disappear; it gets transferred to the government when the Federal Reserve prints new money (creating the inflation). So either way people lose monetary value to reduce the national debt and deficit, either through the front door (taxes) or through the back (inflation).

Inflation is not the magic cure-all you seem to make it out to be.

How could they legally tax those products anyways?

[StormyWeather]

I don't see how the states could tax internet transactions anyways. Isn't that part of the fundamental way our government is set up, so that states cannot levy taxes upon cargo from other states? If they could states like Oklahoma could really rake it in for things going through their state from Texas to Kansas. Man I wish I hadn't slept through government class on that subject now.

Finally...

[Clinoti]

I will stop getting those stupid emails about the internet tax for emails, and bandwidth taxes, etc...Which is the good side.

BUT on the other side of the equation a part of me would not mind paying an internet tax on emails, if it would help in the battle against spam and junk mailings...although one may assume that the senders have deep pockets.

So in this end this really resolves nothing for me. Execept for a link I can point to when I get the next barage of "Internet Email Tax!!!" emails. :)

Re:Finally...

[cr@ckwhore]

You wouldn't mind paying more taxes, as if the near 50% you already pay in taxes and government fees isn't enough? OK, fine! Lets have a *voluntary* email tax, that way you can pay it and I don't have to. Chances are pretty good that if the tax was *voluntary*, you probably wouldn't pay.

I bet you're the same type of socialist that justifies all other "small" tax increases by meaningly sentiments... "I'd pay a tax if I knew it were going to fight spam", "I'd pay cigarette taxes because it's to fight bad health", "I'd pay blah blah to help the environment", "I'd pay yadda yadda to help the starving children", "I'd pay... I'd pay... I'd pay!!!" ... You're the type of person that has allowed us to get into the state of borderline socialism we're in today, because by welcoming a seemingly harmless "small tax" going for a supposed "good cause", you've allowed the government to nickel-and-dime us into oblivion. 5 cents here, 10 cents there... it fucking adds up you know.

All hope is not lost however... I recommend that you read a good book. It's titled "The Ballad of Carl Drega". Look it up on Amazon and be ready to read the truth. Feel free to pay Amazon a little extra "voluntary" tax to fight book pirates. It's a good cause.

Re:Isn't this a state thing?

[I8TheWorm]

Um.... since the Uniform Commercial Code was enacted?

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?

[Clinoti]

1) National Safety - and they didn't really care about security. Now we all pay those special taxes because we (fear) what that lack of security can do and we still carry the trauma with us.

2) Yes. The internet for the most part is not regulatable in the same manner as other utilities, etc. It's a daunting task for some people as it is and for others it's the last bastion of free speech. The internet doesn't need policing - it just needs to refine it's current forumla of less big brother and more responsible parenting/usage.

Re:Why?

[Surak]

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?

Why do you think? Do you think this has to do with preserving consumer interests and protecting your rights?

Pffft. Don't be ridiculous. It's called 'special interests'. Anyone notice that the nation's largest media conglomerate is also the largest Internet service provider? How about the world's largest software company also being a big ISP? Don't get me started at how much money SBC, AT&T, Verizon and company threw at this.

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.

Re:Why?

[Sphere1952]

"...but would a fixed household-based tax on broadband be dumb?"

Just what we always needed, another regressive tax.

If you want to tax anything on the Internet, how about taxing the number of frames in a moving .gif and all the other stuff advertisers like to do?

Re:Why?

[Twylite]

I'm glad someone else is questioning this Bill ... the devil's advocate in me has to find the bad points ;)

In general we pay taxes where the state has an interest in providing or overseeing infrastructure. The principle of special taxes is to impose a tax on the use of infrastructure that isn't essential or not everyone uses.

In most countries income tax pays for government in general, the military, social security, education, and at least partially funds critical instructure like electricity, water and rail. Sales taxes (at least in theory) tend to fund protectionism and transport infrastructure. Airport taxes fund the cost to the state of maintaining airports and controlling air traffic, plus the oversight of the FAA.

Now, if you prohibit any Internet-specific tax, you probably rule out any federal/state regulatory body that can lay down and police minimum standards rules for ISPs and ISP services (including quality of service).

Some people see this as a good thing -- that market forces should address the problem. But the problem is that the Internet is becoming a critical infrastructure, and private investment is focused on money centres. In other words if there's not enough market pressure in a particular area (geographic, type of service, etc) there won't be an investment, and the users lose out.

I'll take a concrete example from the telecommunications market: privitised network operators focus their services at business customers in commercial centres -- these are the juciest pickings. But the state has a responsibility to ensure that everyone has access to this critical infrastructure. So most telecomms markets are regulated to ensure that you can get a telephone, at largely the same price, whether you are a business, an individual in a high density residential area, or a farmer on 1000 acres with no-one in the vacinity.

Assuming the Internet is a critical infrasturcture, doesn't it stand to reason that similar regulation is (or may be) required; and if so, where do we find the money to fund the overseeing body?

Re:Why?

[zakezuke]

Yes, I was thinking something similar in America the good old Telephone Excise Tax also known as the Spanish-American war tax. A war so short it's only a footnote in history, but we are still taxed for it none-the less. Universal Service Fee I believe is the one that we get double taxed on, and don't ask me the diffrence between the Tele Exise tax and the Universal Service fee. If you got a phone, you pay it. If you got long distance service diffrent from your local phone service, you pay it again, if you use a diffrent carrier (1010xxx code) to make a call and get billed, you pay it again. Wasn't so before, but is so now.

Your phone line gets taxed. Maybe it should, maybe it shouldn't (spanish-american war is over after all), but most internet service is over the phone line. If it's over the cable, chances are you are going to get taxed with the phone tax / communication tax. Perhaps they should, perhaps they shouldn't... I'd say that it does however make sence as far as paperwork goes to bill someone based on the communication's line. You can't argue it's a communciations line, and can be used for trans-state communication.

Goods (usually) get taxed
Services (usually) get taxed

Any internet taxes are covered based based on local state laws regarding the taxes of goods or services. Not taxing the medium which people purchace goods or services is a good thing, it encourages the sale of goods and services that can be taxed

Now... if the american goverment was SMART they would actually charge some form of federal tax for goods transported over state lines. That's one thing that actually is becoming an issue in america, the fact that mail ordering pretty much has always enjoyed tax free status so long as you are ordering stuff from out of state. While I think this would suck large rocks, this is something physical you can tax.

Then charging me a tax when I make a sandwich out of it and eat it myself.
Interesting... If I take some honey and yeast and brew meed, technicaly I should be taxed for it dispite whether or not it's for personal consumption. Some states offer a cap for alcoholic products that is taxed (the only way to enforce such a tax). Then again if you bring alcohol or tobacco across the state lines, then technicaly you should be taxed for that too, depending on your local state laws.

Re:Why?

[Sloppy]

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?

When you take a flight, you use some services that are provided by government -- and they are services that arguably must be provided by government. When you send a packet, that is not necessarily the case (though, I admit, the medium that you send the packet on, might have been established by some sort government-granted monopoly).

Re:Why?

[Reteo Varala]

Here's one little fact for you... Wal Mart, the retail chain, made it's beginnings in rural areas, not served by the typical supermarkets and/or department stores. While the other stores competed with one another, Wal Mart established their empire in niche areas.

Given a clever enough opportunist, the same can apply for internet services.

Whee

[shoptroll]

Cool... I'm not too concerned about sales tax anyways, i mean you order stuff from a catalog or one of those shopping networks you gotta pay sales tax... Same principle i think

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

[mental_telepathy]

And it would only cost $80,000,000 a year to regulate. We'll need to invent a new tax to pay for enforcing the email tax.

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!

Re:missed opportunity on SPAM fight

[bons]

SPAM houses within the country would pay through the nose...

And while those still exist, they are not the majority.

And how are the taxes measured? Is each originating site responsible for tracking it's outgoing mail or does everyone track everyone and some government office try to sort this mess out?

Would the income from such a tax even remotely cover the expenses of administrating it?

Or is there a much more effective solution in the $1-$5 per user per month range?

Re:missed opportunity on SPAM fight

[Zaffle]

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.

As much as I agree with you, I have already had long and detailed debates about these subjects. With your proposal, there are a few "problems".

1. How do you regulate it? I receive 100 messages a day that are logs of virus infections on computers I monitor, each of these computers send it directly to my server over the net.

2. Legimate mailing lists, such as the Debian projects mailing list, the kernel mailing list, etc. How do they pay? If you suggest that mailing lists are exempt, then of course, spam lists are just mailing list.

The next line of thought goes to, a fee for any unsolicitated spam sent, but there are many problems with that. How do you find the actual spammer? Maybe fine the person who paid for the spamming (the seller), but if they are located outside your country, that can make it hard. They can also easily claim they never asked any spammer to send this, and the burden is on your to prove they did. So you are back to finding who the spammer was.

Essentially, in any free system, there will *always* be abuse. Its the way it is, and it will probably always be that way. Remember, there are no country lines on the internet. And US law doesn't apply anywhere but the US.

Re:missed opportunity on SPAM fight

[SpaghettiPattern]

Introducing a tax of 1 penny for each e-mail sent would set the average user back about $1 - $5 a month.

And of course you'd volunteer to set-up the administration office for this. And because of the taxing complexity -taxes are never simple- you'd hire loads of expensive consultants and loads of staff. Oh yeah and the customer service center to repeatedly say the service is sorry for mis-billing you and sorry still so many spam messages are sent...

I'm sorry but I -and one or two other people- will strongly oppose to jobs for life at my costs.

Re:missed opportunity on SPAM fight

[vadim_t]

Bah, again this stupid idea.

Wish somebody who thinks it's such a great idea bothered to explain how would something like this be implemented on the TECHNICAL level. It's very easy to say "just tax it", but it's much harder to think of a way of doing it.

So, please explain, how is it taxed? Maybe your ISP charges for the use of their mail server? What if you run your own server? What if you just send your mail to a server in china?

Re:missed opportunity on SPAM fight

[Ckwop]

You can do this another way.. you make it computationally expensive to send an e-mail..

Take the md5 of the e-mail you send (include the from and to fields and the data and time the e-mail was set). Then require that every e-mail most contain another value, found by brute-force, that matches that hash in the lower 16-bits.

It quick to check but expensive to send.. i don't know why anyone hasn't done this yet.. but it'd solve the problem.. We don't even have to change SMTP.. (we can add a new x-whateverheader).

Simon

Re:missed opportunity on SPAM fight

[TGK]

Functionaly the only way to do it is to rewrite the mail protocols. Here's how I'd implement it.

1.) Valid Email Accounts are tied to a database of other Email addresses. These addresses can send messages to the account holder free of charge.

1a.) Entries in the database (adding names, removing names) require a cryptographic key from the account holder (done blind so as not to overly confuse Granny who uses AOL to talk to her nine grandkids)

2.) When sending a message to an account the receiving system checks to see if the sender is on the free list. If not, the system bills the sender for $0.01. How the billing is enforced is a bit of a tussle, suffice it to say it can not be enforced by the sending system, only the receiving system.

2a.) Should the sender decide not to pay the $0.01 fee is message is expunged. Obviously the weakness here is the ability to overload a server with waiting messages.

I think this would go a long way. While it would be a bit of a hassle to make initial contact via email, continued correspondance would be free. The only people this would impact substantialy are those who mostly send messages to people they don't know/correspond with... spammers.

Just thoughts.... and you don't even have to regulate it by law.

Re:missed opportunity on SPAM fight

[lpontiac]

As much as I'd hate to see internet tax, it might be a mechanism to fight SPAM.

If the government was able to see all the email someone sends (that in itself is a big bad!), then why would you bother taxing spam when you could just ban it outright?

Re:missed opportunity on SPAM fight

[vadim_t]

Crypto or no crypto, the big problem here is the payment, which you ignore too easily. Ok, let's say grandma wants to send me an email. Let's also suppose that all this stuff has been integrated into Outlook already as well. Let's also assume that she just got a computer, so she's not in my list yet.

1. Grandma types her email address
2. Grandma sends it
3. Email arrives somewhere.

Now, how does the payment work? Clearly it has to work somehow. One option is that the payment is handled by the receiving server. I like running my own server, so I would do the charge. This means that grandma would have to send me her credit card number. Mistype the email address, and the wrong person gets the credit card number. Great opportunity for abuse.

Okay, suppose I can't run my mail server because I need a certification of that I'm an ISP, etc, etc. So my ISP's mail server does the charge instead. Now they end with a huge database of credit card numbers just waiting for being hacked. And of course some bright guy will manage to get the appropiate certs without being an ISP...

Ok, let's try without credit cards. We just make grandma's ISP pay me money. Her ISPs charges her, and then does a transfer to my ISP, that should be quite safe. There's also some kind of cryptographic authentication to make sure everybody is who they claim to be. But this is not good either. Ok, in the US maybe there could be a law mandating this implementation. But how do you get your mail from grandma when she lives in Russia and you moved to the US? Surely the russian ISP would have to agree to pay, and I don't see why would they bother.

Your ISP then drops the charge from Russia, but then the russian spammers can do pretty much as they please.

Additionally, even supposing the system is perfect it's still easy to abuse. A spammer writes a worm, infects my grandma's computer with it, and uses that to send 10000 emails at $0.01 each. Grandma can handle paying $100 you say? But she lives in Russia where an university teacher's wage is pretty close to $100. Seriously.

Charge a fair ammount for the country's economy? No, that won't work either. A spammer in the US would get an account in Russia, and pay almost nothing. Spammers are profitable with very little. If 1 in 10000 people pays $200, it's profitable. If mailing in Russia costs $0.0001, even more. I'm pretty sure some ISP in Russia would be very happy with such a customer.

Re:missed opportunity on SPAM fight

[I am Jack's username]

They tried: House sends spam bill to Senate; Senate spam filter deletes it

Re:missed opportunity on SPAM fight

[DickBreath]

SPAM houses within the country would pay through the nose... And while those still exist, they are not the majority.

Ahh, but someone is selling something via. SPAM. And the seller would get taxed on their penis enlargement pills. You don't think that they import these?

But I'd rather see a ban on spam rather than a tax. The ban could have huge penalties, which the seller would pay, even if you can't catch the spammer. Putting the sellers out of business would reduce spammers to only selling their spamming software, mailing lists, and services.

Re:missed opportunity on SPAM fight

[FrostedWheat]

You're being sarcastic, but failing miserably

If there is one thing I am good at, is failing miserably!

most spam does come from the USA

I do get a fair amount from the USA, certainly not most. Guess it varies for each person.

It may get routed through systems in other countries

Therefore getting around any kind of tax. The only people a tax would hurt are those who use email a lot for legit reasons. (Developers, mailing lists etc.)

It's a stupid idea. Saying it will help prevent spam is aswell. Infact the only people who benefit are those who collect the tax.

Re:missed opportunity on SPAM fight

[TGK]

With a few possible exceptions, most of us don't actualy own a major peice of fiber that forms a primary pipe in the system. Consequently most/all of us are ALLREADY paying someone for internet access. Handle the payments through them.

Lets start with Alfred, who runs a small town ISP in nowheresville Iowa. Alfred sets up a policy wherein his subscribers Betty, Bob, and Bertha can get email from people on their "contact list" (for lack of a better name) without any sort of fees. Betty has Charlie, Cindy, and Calvin on her contact list, so all three of these people can send her mail for free. She's authenticated them, so the system trusts them for her address. However, Dave isn't on her list. Dave sents Betty and email. Alfred's system sends a message back to Dave informing him that Betty has not authenticated him as a Known Contact and that in order for his message to go through a fee must be deducted from his account in the amount of $0.01.

Dave's ISP is run by another system administrator (Andy) who maintains a secure website wherein users can maintain their accounts and preform other sundry tasks. Dave logs into that account and notes that he has a credit balance of $14.38. His personal login page also indicates that he has 1 unauthenticated message that needs a micro-payment to go through. Dave authorizes the micropayment, and the ISP deducts the money from his account. Note, this doesn't happen automagicaly.

Dan also needs to email Betty, but Dan's ISP is run by a half literate ludite who never bothered to learn HTML (his name is Art). Art's ISP therefore simply sends Dan an email saying that they require a micropayment in order to send the message in question through. Dan either telephones his ISP (since at least in theory this shouldn't happen often) or contacts them in some other way, either paying over the phone by credit card or requesting that the micropayment be added to his next months statement.

Now the nightmare senario. Eva Evonovitch writes a nasty worm that infects Darla's computer. Darla's system sends out 5,000 emails to 4,997 people she doesn't know and three friends. The three messages to friends go through (pitty that) but the other 4,997 come back as a flood of pending charges to Darla's ISP. Darla's ISP hits the panic button, and informs Darla she has a worm. After X days the messages in question time out (because Darla doesn't authenticate them). Thus saving Darla her $49.97 and severely constraining the worm's spread.

The trick is the inter ISP billing system. What it really comes down to, however, is that if I have my system set up this way and you email me from a non-complient ISP you'll get a message back telling you that you have a pending payment. After the message times out you'll get another message back saying as much. If an ISP won't make the effort to allow its users to send email to such a system I imagine market pressures will either crush the system or compel ISPs to adopt.

Re:missed opportunity on SPAM fight

[vadim_t]

That probably won't work too well either. Several problems:

First, nobody got micropayments working yet. One simple reason is that it's probably costs more than $ 0.01 to process a $0.01 payment. The other reason is that many companies are trying it, but micropayments only work well when everybody uses the same company.

Now, let's ignore that. There are much larger problems:

First, nobody will want to enforce that. Just take a look at the discussion about TMDA, the amount of people who find it so rude that they'll never reply to it, and its conflicts with automated responses, tech support (reply coming from another address), etc.

Second, people upgrade very slowly. Forcing people to pay you'll cut yourself from 99% of the world, including most of your computer illiterate friends who will not know if it's a joke or what when they get the "payment required" email.

Third, ISPs will need to establish communication with every other ISP. I don't see why some small ISP in Russia would care much about some computer in Afghanistan claiming it wants a payment. In what currency, and what amount btw?

Fourth, it doesn't remove spam. Spamming will be simply done via worms that will infect the largest amount of computers possible and mail everybody in the address book. Given that currently we see that millions of computers are infected with Windows worms, this is going to be pretty effective.

And finally, nobody is going to like this system much anyway. Email is so popular because it's so simple. Making it like this will only make people switch to instant messengers or something else that's not so complicated, which is what's going to be spammed massively then.

Re:missed opportunity on SPAM fight

[Reteo Varala]

I wouldn't waste my money on taxation, even in the fight against spam... not when I can get my own spam assassin for free. ;)

http://saproxy.bloomba.com

Tax not always bad...

[m_dob]

If only they could find a way of taxing annoying e-mails - I think we would all be happy. A filter searches for words "virus warning" or "enlarge" or "microsoft" would get most of them. Then I could sit back and enjoy a clutter-free inbox.

Re:Tax not always bad...

[isa-kuruption]

Except for those of us who subscribe to Bugtraq or NTBugtraq. The number of e-mails sent to us containing the word 'Microsoft' would tax us into the ground causing most of the *bugtraq community to file Chapter 11 within minutes of such a keyword tax law.

Re:Keystrokes

[richie2000]

But then, maybe they should just tax pr0n.

By the inch?

Re:Problem

[Stiletto]

Come on man! My buddy is an M.D. and do you realize how much he pays for malpractice insurance?? States without malpracice caps are losing quality doctors fast as they flee to states where they can actually take home some of their pay after insurance.

Why don't they do something useful...

[TyrranzzX]

like take a legislative razor and cut through the lines of providers who establish local monopolies and then force people to pay exuberant prices on internet connections?

Seriously. Companies built the network just like Ma bell did and when you creat a vital resource you must give that resource to the people or face hell, like Ma bell did. It isn't as bad as it was for broadband but if the deregulation continues as it is, it'll get that bad.

If they REALLY want to increase the growth of broadband, how about taking some money from, say, "foreign aid" or military spending, say around 10-20 billion and then throwing it at companies to build lines in areas where they need it while ensuring that the lines belong to the people and making sure the companies can't charge more than $XXX in those areas? And actually make sure the lines are built and that they are upto code or else the companies get it.

Re:Why don't they do something useful...

[snatchitup]

If they REALLY want to increase the growth of broadband, how about taking some money from, say, "foreign aid" or military spending, say around 10-20 billion

What are you talking about. Let's add up some of the debt these companies fed on in the 90's.

AT&T owes about $70B (less now after divesting cable)

WorldCom owes at least $40B

Sprint owes at least $30B
Qwest owes at least $40B
AOL has close to $40B in long term debt.

Then there are the countless other little guys. the Global Crossings, Frontier Networks, eSpires, etc. etc.

We're talking more than $500B was already borrowed to build broadband. That's more than the entire defense budget, and foreign aid budgets put together. I'm not trying to flame you, but you are a stupid liberal who lost track of how big the world really is. The private sector finance machine is the big leagues, the federal govt. and it's budget is a small potato

Damn Republicans....

[snatchitup]

Oh wait.... Is that right? We like this don't we?

Re:Damn Republicans....

[anthony_dipierro]

We like this don't we?

Actually, I'd prefer to keep the federal government out of the affairs of the states. If the states want to tax internet access, they should be able to do so.

Re:Damn Republicans....

[snatchitup]

How about transmission lines? Say, if a line passes through a state, would you allow them to tax the bits going through the line?

Also, many transmission lines follow along railroad lines and therefore come under federal jurisdiction under the Trans.Railroad act.

Re:Damn Republicans....

[hellfire]

Actually, I hate state tax structure. The federal income tax is the only attempt at actually creating a fair tax system by way that those who can pay do so, and the wealth is redistributed for the good of the society.

State taxes usually consist of sales tax which is an unfair system, because the same $20 shirt with tax is still $20 whether you make $5000 a year or $500,000 a year.

Re:Damn Republicans....

[FroMan]

What a damnable system where you pay taxes on what you spend! We should only tax people who make more than I do. Cause they are rich and I am not. We should tax successful people. Make it more difficult to allow successful people to create businesses which they can hire people to work in. If they are rich or make more money than I do they must have done something illegal.

Idiot.

Re:Damn Republicans....

[johnny0101]

Actually, I'd prefer to keep the federal government out of the affairs of the states.

Say i'm hosting a web site in FL and CA wants to tax someone (as they are prone to do) for accessing my site... There's this new thing called the Constitution of the United States that gives the Congress power to control interstate commerce... which is the case here.

Hypothetically, lets say I have a site hosted in CA then CA should be able to tax CA residents for accessing my site. (according to your theory) However, each state would have to keep a listing of ALL sites inside the respective state and make sure they updated when some site changed host providers.

In addition to the complexity and cost of keeping track of this, the packets from my site may actually be routed through another state before they get to your computer! In order to fully enforce the tax we would have to enforce routing within states.

Then what if i decide to mirror my site in another state!?!?
Hopefully you can see that the internet (within the US) is truly interstate commerce and falls under the jurisdiction of Congress.

Re:Damn Republicans....

[1ucius]

Tough to say - it's a tax break for the rich. Shouldn't we be taxing it and using the money to feed starving kids in Nebraska, or something like that?

Re:Damn Republicans....

[sharkdba]

sales tax which is an unfair system, because the same $20 shirt with tax is still $20 whether you make $5000 a year or $500,000 a year.

The idea of sales tax (as opposed to income tax) is to create an incentive to save, as opposed to spend. One of the many tax reform proposals said to eliminate income tax altogether, and having a higher sales tax. This way you would keep all you make (an incentive to earn more), but have to think twice about what you want to spend your earnings on.

In your example above, why should my income decide how much I pay for a shirt? Nonsense.

Re:Damn Republicans....

[hellfire]

You misread my point. The problem is the shirt costs the same amount of money REGARDLESS of my income. Basic mathematics shows that sals tax punishes lower incomes because the tax is based not on what you bring in, but what you spend. A better example would be to analyze your total expenses for necessities (clothes, food, shelter, utilities, transportation). Say your total yearly expenses total $10,000. Now slap a 6% sales tax on it. First of all, your out another $600. Second of all, the people selling those goods experience a reduction in overall sales, and can afford to spend less on wages, a secondary effect which is just as nasty to those same people who are trying to scratch out a living on your cheap. Income tax dos lower disposable income, but it only hits you once, not twice.

Now compare those expenses with someone who makes $20,000 a year vs. someone who makes $200,000. The person making $200,000 can afford those increases, the $20k cannot.

The bottom line is your expenses are not tied to you income. Expenses are tied to the market, and if the market pushes those expenses too high, those in lower income brackets can't afford them. Sales tax just pushes those higher. Thats the same reason a sales tax is a bad idea, because adding 30% to your purchased goods is just waaaaaaay too much money.

And there is nothing good about Saving in an economy. You need incentives to SPEND. Spending generates good economic growth as money moves around, changes hands, and open up opportunities. All taxes discourage spending so that's a moot point, but sometimes you gotta tax.

Re:Damn Republicans....

[anthony_dipierro]

Say i'm hosting a web site in FL and CA wants to tax someone (as they are prone to do) for accessing my site...

As long as the person they're taxing is in California, I don't see the problem.

There's this new thing called the Constitution of the United States that gives the Congress power to control interstate commerce... which is the case here.

Hey, I don't deny that it's Constitutional. I'm just saying it's a bad idea.

In addition to the complexity and cost of keeping track of this, the packets from my site may actually be routed through another state before they get to your computer! In order to fully enforce the tax we would have to enforce routing within states.

I don't understand how this is an argument against my point that the federal government shouldn't be getting involved here. Obviously there are certain types of taxes (such as the one you describe) which are difficult to enforce. But others (such as a tax on dialup and DSL) aren't.

Re:Damn Republicans....

[anthony_dipierro]

How about transmission lines? Say, if a line passes through a state, would you allow them to tax the bits going through the line?

Well, such a tax would quite possibly be unconstitutional.

Also, many transmission lines follow along railroad lines and therefore come under federal jurisdiction under the Trans.Railroad act.

I never denied that the federal government has jurisdiction. I merely said that they shouldn't be getting involved here.

Re:cool

[bludstone]

Er, yes.

Im also very far inland, and in no danger of flooding whatsoever. Im extremely well stocked and have been since tuesday.

Im ready for this, and confident I can handle it.

Short Sited decison?

[jez_f]

OK this may be a little controversial but I think that in the future a 'bandwidth tax' or some such thing may not be a bad idea. We supposedly moving into an age of the information economy. Some people through the Internet have more access to information than others, this information makes their life better. They can look for better jobs, be better informed on what is going on in the world and make more productive decisions accordingly. This situation will get worse as more and more services move exclusively online. The info poor will have fewer opportunities.

If you see tax as a way of re distributing wealth to help the less well off then you could conceivably charge a bandwidth tax and put the money into public net access. I know not everyone sees tax this way but it dosn't seem like that bad an idea to me
It could also be used to help fund Internet monitoring, which I know no one likes but the government is going to do it anyway so why shouldn't people who use more bandwidth pay a greater share of the cost?

Re:Short Sited decison?

[lanswitch]

Now this is really short-sighted. The internet is an international medium, and by regulating spam on the country level you'll never be able to stop it. It might help a bit for some american users, but the rest of the 'net still has to suffer. Spam should be fought at a different level. Maybe at the mail-client, maybe at the isp, maybe somewhere else in the mail-systems we use today. But ALWAYS FROM WITHIN THE COMPUTERSYSTEM, BE IT SOFTWARE OR HARDWARE. Or else the 'net will become a playtoy of politics instead of the mass-medium it is today. Tax is by it's nature a political thing.

Don't regulate the 'net, let the community take care of that.

Re:Short Sited decison?

[DarkSarin]

YIKES!

I have to say that your post, along with numerous others, typifies the exact attitude that is allowing politicians to continually eat away at American paychecks. We are continually saying (we being Americans in general) to the government how much we hate taxes, but please, oh PLEASE, fix our problems. Give us more free stuff.

Except that its not free. It IS redistribution of wealth, or better yet, legalized theft. Yep that's right, you have here a believer in the idea of capitalism and personal liberty.

I personally believe that if the government would stay out of peoples lives except to provide certain basic services that the constitution calls for, such as police, fire and possibly ambulance, we would all be much better off.

We would all have more money in our pockets at the end of the day, and frankly , more people would feel able and willing to donate to special private charities that could easily take the place of the governments social welfare programs.

Mod up, mod me down, I don't really care. But I for one welcome any law that reduces the states' ability to pass new taxes. I don't necessarily agree with Bush's policy on spending--in the most essential ways, Republicans are the same as Democrats: they both love to spend American tax dollars like it is water.

In the end, we will only be saved when people decide to get rid of the money pigs and stand up for their rights.

Re:Short Sited decison?

[TnkMkr]

Yeah... ummm.. Taxes are NOT a method of weath redistribution. Taxes are what the government forces the citizenry to pay in exchange for basic services such as roads, military protection, police, fire and schools. I am not paying taxes so my money can go to those who don't work. (And I distinguish the difference between unemployment benifits and welfare... of which the latter is abused much more often.) I believe in helping my neighbor, but on MY terms and in amounts I deem reasonable, I don't need the government to force me to help others.

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.

Re:Would Taxing Be Feasable?

[geekoid]

If they hqave a business liscence, you tax the companies sales. the company passes that on to you.

When you buy a good, the tax is added at the register, not when you walk out of the door.

Now small sales will probably go unchecked, just like a garage sale.

I mean, if you sold a used cd for 5 dollars, would you report it? probably not. does the government know this? sure. do they care? no.

Does anyone know if this passes if

[sielwolf]

it would be retroactive for FY2003? Ohio has an Internet Goods sales tax that you have to account for on your state taxes every 4/15. Of course one can massage the numbers ("gee... those three CPUs I bought online came by Fedex so...") but I'd be nice to not have to worry about it.

Or would this affect state taxation at all?

Re:Does anyone know if this passes if

[241comp]

If passed, this will not affect sales tax levied on goods purchased online at all. Unless those "goods" were bandwidth, bits or email.

By Striking down the Bill.......

[3seas]

You tell the public to give up it's fight against such taxation, CAUSE ITS GONNA HAPPEN ANYWAY!!!

It also potentially brings it up as possibly a major news media topic....

SPAMMERs aren't THAT rich...

[MosesJones]

If there was even a 1/10th cent tax on each email SPAM would drop dramatically.

Think about it, you've seen the advertisement "Read 200 million people instantly" at 1/10th cent that means EACH single SPAM will cost you $200,000

Now the market for penis enlargement could be big... but I'm betting it isn't that big (pun intended).

Prohibits taxing access, not e-commerce

[wayward_son]

This bill prohibits the taxing of the access to the internet, not sales taxes on goods purchased over the internet.

A good law. I think the politicians should keep their grubby hands off internet access.

Fighting Spam with an e-mail tax...

[Nova Express]

...is like fighting an infestation of fleas by dousing your house with gasoline and setting it afire. Sure, it works, but the solution is worse than the problem.

You tax something, you get less of it. Taxing the internet would mean slowing down growth and innovation (real innovation, not the Microsoft kind). Moreover, once passed, that tax will NEVER be repealed. Besides, how are you going to collect that tax from all those people who are already breaking laws by forging headers, and on all those offshore spammers? Far better to pass laws aimed specifically at spammers, than to hope they're taken out by carpet-bombing everyone on the Internet with an e-mail tax.

As P. J. O'Rourke once said, giving money and power to the federal government is liking giving liquor and car keys to a teenage boy.

Spam prevention technique

[pmasters]

There was a scheme to stop spammers by making anyone on your non-approved list pay to send you an email - would this law stop this from being possible? I thought it was the most promising spam idea so far.

My cynic-ometer is also whispering that this law may have been encouraged by spammers, not that I listen to the voices anymore :(

Re:Spam prevention technique

[gglaze]

I think you're on to the most important issue here, and everyone seems to be overlooking it. The biggest impact a ban like this can have is to give spammers insurance that they won't have to worry about this sort of anti-spam tax in the future. You are definitely right that that is (was?) one of the most promising schemes anyone has thought of to stop spam.

*sigh* oh well, at least I won't have to pay taxes... I can feel so happy to know that the $4.27 a month I'm saving by not paying these taxes only costs me 10 hours a month of sifting through spam!

P.s. please mod this guy's comment up! :)

Interstate is not Intrastate

[linuxislandsucks]

Interstate accross state line sis fed bawick not states..

Re:Interstate is not Intrastate

[e5z8652]

Translation to help moderators understand the original post (It is a good point, linuxislandsucks probably types too fast and left some stuff out):

Taxing or restricting Interstate commerce accross state line sis a fed eral ba ili wick and is not controlled by the states '..

Re:cool

[nomadic]

"What?! They voted against something I want? They're all a bunch of slaves to special interest groups!"

"What?! They voted for something I want? They're only doing it to get re-elected!"

Bad Idea.

[PhxBlue]

Why are you trying to create a need for an internet tax? I have a better idea: let me keep my money and do what I want with it, rather than letting the government spend it in ways I'll have no control over.

It isn't about Commerce...

[cnelzie]

It is about taxing per bit transfered over your network, whether connected to the Internet or not. It is about taxing each and every email you send out. It is NOT about sales tax.

Read the article next time.

Also check back a few weeks, perhaps a month or so ago about Florida looking to institute a tax on every piece of IT Infrastructure in use in their state. Yes, they want to tax per email, they want to tax per bit transfered over public AND private networks.

If that law is passed you would see a few things...

One, a number of jobs for mailboy/mailgirl would open up at major corporations as they shut off and remove quite a bit of their network infrastructure.

Two, High-Tech businesses and businesses that rely on Network Technologies will just get up and get out of the state of Florida, or at least move all of their operations that require network technologies out of Florida.

In either case it would be highly destructive to the Florida economy and any other state that persues such a course of action without getting the rest of the states to add the same exact tax across the board.

Re:It isn't about Commerce...

[91degrees]

It is about taxing per bit transfered over your network, whether connected to the Internet or not. It is about taxing each and every email you send out. It is NOT about sales tax.

Which makes it even more of a per state issue.

In either case it would be highly destructive to the Florida economy and any other state that persues such a course of action without getting the rest of the states to add the same exact tax across the board.

So it's now the responsibility of the federal governemtn to stop state governments from making bad decisions? Why do we bother with states at all if thet's the case?

This is a great day for democracy and breasts.

[joeszilagyi]

Thank goodness I will no longer have to worry about unfair or adverse taxation on my free pornography.

Re:This is a great day for democracy and breasts.

[f0rt0r]

Amen! Um, I mean...not that I download porn...no...never...

Re:Keystrokes

[viking099]

no, by the uh... stroke.

New Hampshire

[AtariAmarok]

Live free or DIE!!!!!

Re:Isn't this a state thing?

[digitalunity]

The point of this regulation wasn't to limit the states rights, it is to protect the citizens from unfair and discriminatory taxing. That's always a good thing. If this goes through, states can still tax you on things like online shopping, as long as it's a sales tax that applies to everyone. I would hate to go to amazon or ebay and get a message that they were collecting a 'Special Internet Tax' for whatever state of %(arbitrary#). Imagine checking your DSL or cable bill and finding a special tax line:

Network Access Tax: $23.30 @ .005 per MB

I don't think many people would put up with it. It's good that this bill came along. Along the same lines, it's also sad that they had to specifically prevent states from implementing discriminatory taxes as sources of revenue. Look at the Seattle dime espresso tax and the turnout; 67% of citizens said no. If states went along and implemented an internet usage tax, it's nearly a sure bet that zero of that revenue would be used to support the internet. It would have been especially unfair.

Next on the agenda: Affermative Action Net!

[jaFoe]

Hah, your comment makes me crack up! What would come next after net taxation to "redistribute wealth" Maby whites of anglo-saxon origen should not be allowed to use the net in order for less fourtionate and therefore internet deprived minorities to be able to find better jobs and be informed. Allthough "Affermative Action Net" sounds like it would make a good TV series, the idea is moronic. Your idea to tax usage of the net to redistribute wealth is just disgusting. Libraries have computers with access, therefore allowing access to those deprived. Get Real

Re:cool

[RevDobbs]

Im ready for this, and confident I can handle it.

... until your internet access goes down.

Re:cool

[Trigun]

Even Hitler did things because they were the right thing to do.

No, this is not enough to invoke Godwin's Law.

Re:Problem

[AceM2]

This doesn't make sense to me.. Bush in that case was trying to keep money taken away from people for [oftenly] frivolous claims.. Thereby making medical costs go down overall.. So how on earth does that translate to vetoing a ban on internet tax?

but what about VAT

[LordKronos]

This is good news. Now if only we can get them to do something about the ridiculous VAT which Europe has imposed on the rest of the world. As a US software developer selling from my own web site, I am required* to collect VAT on all sales to EU customers. Not only am I required* to collect it, I have to send it to them at my expense. On top of all that, the new internet VAT law is quite confusing, and even the people responsible for making and enforcing it can't seem to agree on exactly what it covers (ex: does it apply to companies whose EU sales fall below a minimum threshold? Some say yes, some say no, some say they'll get back with you).

What makes it even worse is that EU customers are accustomed to having VAT shown in the price, whereas in the US everyone is used to seeing prices without TAX (actually, it goes beyond that...I've been told in the EU it is illegal to display prices without VAT) This means on my web site, if I want to sell a $20 item, I have to display it as $20 to US customers, but as $23.50 to EU customers. Of course, identifying the origin of a website visitor isn't quite an exact science, so it makes it quite difficult to automate this.

If congress could do something about this it would make things so much easier. Maybe pass a law making it illegal to collect taxes for a foreign government. They could start a whole "collecting money for foreign governments funds terrorism" campaign.

* No, I'm not required by US law to collect EU VAT, but should I ever choose to visit the EU on business or vacation, I suppose I could find myself in a bit of trouble for not doing so.

Re:but what about VAT

[MickLinux]

Okay, how about this: Say

PRICE: USA $20.00 EU $25.00 ***

*** EU price includes VAT Tax, plus our EU VAT Tax Handling Fee

Re:but what about VAT

[Surreal_Streaker]

PRICE: USA $20.00 EU $25.00 *** *** EU price includes VAT Tax, plus our EU VAT Tax Handling Fee

Don't forge the VAT on the "EU VAT Tax Handling fee"!

Re:but what about VAT

[LordKronos]

Imagine what it will look like once Canada, Australia, Russia, Korea, China, Mexico, ... all add their own tax rates.

The other option is to have 1 price and eat the cost, but that doesn't feel right either.

It's also been pointed out to me several times that the US fought quite hard a few centuries ago to break away from foreign taxation, and this new VAT tax tries to put us back under taxation again. Sure, you may say its not the US vendor being taxed, but does the EU care where the money comes from (whether I eat the cost or pass it on to the customer)? No...they just want the money from me. In addition, as I said, it costs fees to process and send them the VAT I "collected for them". That certainly feels like I'm being taxed.

Re:but what about VAT

[LordKronos]

Keep in mind that this is the EU, not the US. We are not that paranoid and not that hostile to one another. The only reason for putting you in jail would be electing morons who crave world domination and free shipments of crude oil.

Hey, I didn't even vote for the first Bush. I certainly didn't vote for the 2nd one.

A simple note on your site stating that prices do not include sales tax would be sufficient.

The problem is that (from what I've been told) people there are accustomed to seeing VAT in the price, and when they don't they get a bit upset about it.

To put this tax into perspective: it is a tax lifted on luxury goods, and this helps to keep our social security system running.

If the EU wants to tax their own citizens, that's perfectly fine to me, I don't have a problem with it. So what they need to do is require people to pay the VAT themselves on anything they buy from a non EU vendor. Don't get me involved in the process. What it boils down to is that they can't trust their own citizens to pay the tax, so they throw the responsibility of collecting on me.

Re:but what about VAT

[NineNine]

That IS your responsibility, just like collecting sales tax in the US. YOU get the benefit from European business, so you should have to collect the tax. Personally, I don't ship outside of the US due to all of those fucking headaches.

Re:but what about VAT

[sparc_]

>Hey, I didn't even vote for the first Bush. I certainly didn't vote for the 2nd one.

Then you should have no fears:)

True, the system should be changed to a more unifor tax. I guess that will be the next step here. You get anything from 8% to 24% depending on the state.
Isn't there a way to lift taxes when it hits the EU borders. I know I never pay any taxes on-line. The customs office or FedEX or UPS collect them usually when I buy stuff. (for a small fee of course)

Re:but what about VAT

[Stone Pony]

People are indeed accustomed to seeing VAT included in the price of goods because, as you rightly say, it's a legal requirement that it's shown.

There's no restriction, though, on showing both the VAT-inclusive and VAT-exclusive price of goods alongside one another. In the UK, at least, the only retail goods which I can think of where that's done as a matter of course are computers and related gear. In most cases the VAT-exclusive price is given greater prominence, but the inclusive price is always shown too. The situation for goods sold between businesses is slightly different: in those cases it's usual to show the VAT-exclusive price and show the VAT as a separate item (because VAT-registered buyers can claim back the VAT they've paid on their own purchases later. And no, you can't simply register yourself and escape VAT altogether: this is a simplified description, there's a ton of other rules about registration and liability.

I think that the philosophical underpinning for all this is rooted in historic attitudes to tax. The EU way has the advantage that you can see exactly what you're going to pay. The US approach is like a declaration that "this is what I'm charging you. Don't blame me when the cost turns out to be more, blame the politicians!"

I know that this was the thing that I found most difficult to get used to the first time I was in the USA. It was okay for the big things, but it just got a bit wearing having to think about it for every single purchase, no matter how trivial.

Re:but what about VAT

[LordKronos]

Isn't there a way to lift taxes when it hits the EU borders
I sell downloadable software. This law specifically singles out digital delivery. Even if I offer a "download now and get it on CD too" option, this law still says I have to collect the taxes (again, I think it's a trust issue...they don't trust their citizens not to download the software and then not show up to take delivery of the CD and pay the VAT).

Re:but what about VAT

[MickLinux]

That's where your "VAT Tax handling fee" comes in. You have 2 prices: 1 with VAT+fee, the other without. Countries without a VAT tax get no fee. Countries with VAT tax get tax+fee that *approximately* averages to 110% of the VAT tax. That way, you always make a profit, never a loss, and people get annoyed at their own government's VAT tax.

Re:but what about VAT

[Chibi Merrow]

Instead of spending loads of money on mini-nukes to circumvent international treaties, help the needed, feed the hungry.

Nuking the hungry solves world hunger problems, too...

Sorry, couldn't resist...

To put it simply, many Americans believe the government has no business seeing to the needy, that's what charities are for... The Constitution doesn't allow for the government to compel you at gunpoint to give up your money to be redistributed... That's something that goes on simply because politicians will lose elections if they challenge it. The government should build roads and see to defense and stay out of people's lives.

P.S. What's all this business about 'mini-nukes' I keep seeing from European posters? When I hear 'mini-nukes' I think of the pee-wee nukes in Starship Troopers... I know THAT can't be right...

Sorry to disapoint you

[TamMan2000]

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.

Sorry, but I am most certainly a Bush-basher, and I have been called a socialist before (I don't consider myself to be one, but I do share many of their ideals).

I have nothing against a law forcing consistancy in the application of taxation across diferent sales channels. In fact I think it is a great idea.

A real socialist should be against sales taxes all together anyway, they are inherantly regresive. Instead, things that can be taxed progressively (income, capital gains...) should be taxed at a higher rate, and get rid of these damn sales taxes.

Re:Sorry to disapoint you

[goldspider]

What's wrong with a flat income tax, the only fair way to ensure that people pay the same share of taxes?

Oh, that's right, it doesn't redistribute the country's wealth.

You say you're not a socialist, but if it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck...

Re:Sorry to disapoint you

[goldspider]

"Besides, it is not wealth redistribution, it is paying as your ability to do so dictates."

...and who gets to decide what one can afford to pay? A person who makes $500,000 per year can certainly AFFORD to pay at least $400,000 of that (they're not going to starve, go without heat, etc.) to the government, but does that make it right? What right does the government have to (essentially) dictate one's standard of living?

Again, what's wrong with a flat (say, 20%) income tax? Someone who makes $10,000 only pays $2,000, while the rich guy who makes $10 Million pays $2 Million. Explain to me how that isn't a fair system.

As for welfare, I'm against any form of it; both individual and corporate welfare, IMHO, is unconstitutional.

Re:Sorry to disapoint you

[TamMan2000]

Again, what's wrong with a flat (say, 20%) income tax? Someone who makes $10,000 only pays $2,000, while the rich guy who makes $10 Million pays $2 Million. Explain to me how that isn't a fair system.

Have you ever tried to feed, clothe, and house yourself for $8,000 a year? I would certainly claim that the person making 10K would endure an increadable hardship to pay 2K a year in taxes, where for someone making 10M, 2M is not that hard to come up with.

Is it fair? Maybe not (I think it is, but I can understand thinking that it isn't). Is it right? I think so.

Re:Sorry to disapoint you

[Nyarly]

Quick aside (because we're already drifting from topic):

Whenever the idea of a flat tax comes up, the counter argument is always (and correctly) that at the low end of the income spectrum, the remainder of a flat percentage is less than survivable - or at least, provides for a level of survival that is disgraceful in a country as wealth as the US is.

There's also the (slightly disengenious) argument that in lower income ranges, there's less time to figure out how to represent your taxable income as being smaller than it might otherwise appear, less room to build tax shelters, and certainly no money to pay someone else to do it for you. (On a related point, one might argue that the existence of tax accountants is a rebuke of a corrupt tax system. But that would also be more than a little disengenious.)

That said then, why does no one ever propose the following. Set a limit to how much money it takes to live. Define it seperately from the rest of the tax code, because there would obviously be adjustments for marriage and domestic partnership, children, etc. Simply impose the restriction that the limit is a cost of living, and that apart from reasonable variations, it applies to everyone.

Now, apply a flat income tax on any income above that level. If you press the limit up, and drive the tax rate towards 100%, you work towards a kind of socialism, which obviously is not an advantage. But at present, the richest Americans pay 50% of their declared income, so that's obviously not what we're looking at.

So apart from the issues of twisting and corruption, where's the harm in this semi-flat income tax?

Obviously the squirrelly part comes in the protection limit, but we already presume to individually adjust taxes based on exemptions, so what else is wrong with this scheme?

Re:Sorry to disapoint you

[TXG1112]

The main argument against the flat tax is that the wealthy disproportionately receive the real benefits of government.

Defense spending primarily creates a nation where it's safe to do business, allowing businesses to function in stable, regulated markets, providing profits for the owners. Regulations and government mean that I can trust the banking, insurance and finance industries.

If I make a lot of money, I want the government to spend a lot of effort ensuring a safe, stable environment so I can maintain my standard of living. This costs a lot of money, and I receive a great deal of benefit from this. The more money I make the more I have to lose. This is how I can justify the need for me to spend some of that money to pay for that security and stability than a subsistance income level family.

Re:Sorry to disapoint you

[goldspider]

"Defense spending primarily creates a nation where it's safe to do business, allowing businesses to function in stable, regulated markets, providing profits for the owners."

I didn't mention I am also in favor of a corporate (and government too) salary cap. If no one person in a company were allowed to make more than (for example) 40x what their lowest-paid employee made, that would go a long way towards establishing fair wages, and take a lot of power out of the hands of unions. A win-win situation.

Re:Sorry to disapoint you

[TamMan2000]

If no one person in a company were allowed to make more than (for example) 40x what their lowest-paid employee...

Damn, I was just starting to not like you :)

I have proposed this idea many times... Things like that make progressive taxes less nessisary, it is nice to see that you aren't just another pissed off cheap-labor conservative...

Re:Sorry to disapoint you

[_Sharp'r_]

You've managed to reinvent in mangled form the Cato version of the exempt-the-poor national sales tax.

Re:Sorry to disapoint you

[Stiletto]

Your solution is too simplistic and can be destroyed with loopholes.

Let's say I am CEO of ExploitCorp. My lowest paid employee makes minimum wage, $5.15 hourly (no, he's not in Kansas where the min wage is much lower). This means--assuming the guy works 40 hour weeks--my salary is capped at roughly $428,000.

I also own 10 apartment buildings on the beach, and I rent each of them for $3000/mo. My "company" consists of just me, so I keep all this income: another $360,000.

Don't forget dividends from my stocks, bonds, and interest on my various savings and money market accounts. For your average hoity-toity CEO, let's estimate a conservative $25,000 yearly.

Add in sales from capital assets, pensions and annuities, royalties on the book I wrote, and any income I made outside of the country, and that cap is starting to look less and less effective.

Moral of the story: The rich know more income loopholes than you do. Shut up and get back to work.

Re:Sorry to disapoint you

[Thing 1]

A real socialist should be against sales taxes all together anyway, they are inherantly regresive.

Could you expand on this a bit? I have been an advocate of the Fair Tax for several years now, precisely because it is a sales tax.

It taxes new goods and services at 23%. It eliminates the income tax. The part I like best about this is that it moves the "penalty" of taxation from income (creation, productivity) to consumption (destruction, waste) -- and by not taxing used goods, it promotes reuse and recycling.

I say make as much money as you want, and keep it. If you prefer to live in a condo instead of a million dollar house, your expenses will be lower, and therefore your taxes will be also. How is this not a good thing? (Seriously, I don't really understand "regressive" and "progressive". Thanks!)

Re:Sorry to disapoint you

[TamMan2000]

I guess inherantly is a little strong...

The assumption is that those who make more save more (in general this is true). so somebody who pays a x% sales tax on every good they purchase, and lives a hand to mouth existance pays x% of their income in taxes, someone who makes enough money to set 20% away at the end of each month only pays .8*x% of their income in taxes...

Re:Sorry to disapoint you

[goldspider]

"Your solution is too simplistic and can be destroyed with loopholes."

It may be, depending on what 'problem' you're trying to solve. If you're trying to keep rich people from acquiring more wealth, than yes, that would be too simplistic. But I'm not of a mindset that we should be trying to find new and creative ways to separate people from the money they've earned. That's what our socialist governments are for! All I'm looking at is a way to close the gap between what corporations spend on executive salaries and what they spend on Joe Sixpack's salary. I could care less what investments a CEO has on the side.

BTW - we all got sent home, except for essential officers and personnel, due to the approaching storm. Go figure!

Re:Sorry to disapoint you

[ckaminski]

You're comparing apples and oranges. He's not advocating stopping someone from taking multiple sources of income, only that the days of $20million CEO's come to an end. When the lowest paid person in the company is paid $10 an hour, then at a 40x salary cap, the CEO only makes $400. At THAT job.

Does that make sense?

-Chris

Re:Sorry to disapoint you

[TamMan2000]

I don't really see your ExploitCorp CEO as a very complicated problem.

The apartments and stocks, bonds... are all investment income, which is a different class of income which would be taxed differently.

Also, WRT the apartments, is he mowing the lawns, and unclogging the toilets...? How much of his time does he spend on all this? Are the share holders and board members of Exploit Corp happy about this?

Even if all that stuff flies and the investment income goes untaxed, he is still under $1000000 which I would call progress in terms of attacking the gross inequities in compensation in corporate America.

Re:Sorry to disapoint you

[Thing 1]

So a regressive tax is bad for the poor, because it taxes them more (proportionally) than the rich?

And what's the definition of a progressive tax? It taxes the rich and poor "equally" in terms of percentage of income? I still like the FairTax better, because it penalizes waste instead of penalizing productivity.

Take a look at the FairTax -- it has provisions for the poor, as obviously there's going to be a lower bracket where paying taxes doesn't make sense, because as you said they need 100% of their income to pay the bills. In fact, they give money to the lowest bracket (it's been a while since I read it, but I believe that the lowest bracket basically gets a "handout," paid for by taxes from higher brackets). While I can't say "they've thought of everything" they do seem to have a great plan.

The other great part about it is eliminates the IRS from citizens' lives; it reduces the "collection points" to about 5% of their size (i.e., instead of having all citizens file income tax returns, only businesses that sell new goods and services need to). This also has beneficial privacy implications as well.

Re:Sorry to disapoint you

[ckaminski]

Except that with a proper plan, the necessities are not taxed (clothing, food, medicine, birth control?) while luxuries (alcohol, cigarettes, recreational drugs (oh please!) entertainment, dining out, cars, gas, etc) are taxed at a flat rate.

Those who buy only food and clothing and rent a home are paying no tax. Those who spend all their money on booze and cigarettes are paying the same as everyone else.

Somewhat like Massachusetts today. Clothes and food are tax-free. Everything else is fair game.

Re:Sorry to disapoint you

[TamMan2000]

And what's the definition of a progressive tax? It taxes the rich and poor "equally" in terms of percentage of income?

That would be a flat tax, a progressive tax (like what we have in the states for income) taxes the rich at a higher rate than the poor.

Re:Sorry to disapoint you

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

I'm a socialist (80% socialist; 15% anarchist; 5% other :) ) so here is MY view. Do note that socialism is very broad and people have diverging views. I would be somewhere near the far-left.

Without reading anything about FairTax, I don't see how it can work under modern capitalism. Modern economies, the vast majority capitalist, depend on consumption to drive their economies. Economists (who are mostly hardcore capitalists) even say that 2/3 of the US economy, for example, is driven by consumption. If you attempt to tax consumption, I am pretty sure those in power (ie. corporations, wealthy elites, economists, etc) won't let you. I can't see how economists will want to REDUCE consumption. For example, if Americans reduced consupmtion even further, USA would go into deflation (and possibly depression). Regardless of what you think, consumption is what is driving the US economy. Needless to say, consumption is bad for the world (especially from an environmental point of view) but that's another story. Capitalists don't entertain ethical or moral considerations.

To understand progressive taxes, you need to understand a lot of things. You probably already know this but let me just restate it. PROGRESSIVE TAXES tax the wealthy at a HIGHER rate than lower classes. An example is income tax in most countries, where the rich pay a higher rate (not just base amount eg. their tax rate may be 47% while yours is 37%). So is it an unfair tax, as the right wing claims? Not really, although it depends on your econopolitical stance.

A moderate may ask why the left wing supports a progressive tax rate when we stand for equality. Clearly, a progressive tax is not "fair" in the sense that it is not equal. Well the answer to why the left likes progressive taxes requires some understanding.

Socialism, as well as most--if not all--of the left wing, is based on two key underlying philosophies: egalitarianism and utilitarianism. Egalitarianism is the view that we should be striving to create a society where everyone is equal/no discrimination/etc. However, it goes one step above equality. Egalitarnianism also requires the elimination of CLASSES.

Socialists, as well as branches of socialism such as communism, Communism, trokyism, etc, attempt to eliminate classes, on top of trying to create equality. Elimination of classes requires minimizing economic wealth disparities. Progressive taxes are thought to flatten the economic disparity (somewhat) so that's why most socialists, including me, support it. The problem isn't money per se. It is important to note that socialism does not value money, like capitalism (under capitalism, money is #1; under socialism it isn't very valuable--it is simply a counting mechanism (ie. currency)). So money or wealth isn't the problem. Instead, the problem is that wealth can be translated to POWER, especially under capitalistic societies. That is really the problem: POWER. You might be a good capitalist and in total denial that money isn't power but you are wrong! The truth of the matter is, if you are wealthy you have greater access to politicians, you can name streets after you, you can purchase huge swaths of land/forest, you can access media more easily than a lower class person, and so forth. Progressive taxes weaken the power that the wealthy gain. They aren't the total solution but they do help. For instance, the wealthy in Europe, which has higher progressive taxes are weaker than the wealthy in USA, which has lower progressive taxes.

Now, if you are a moderate, you might still go: 'how can you violate the notion of fairness?' Well the answer lies in utilitarianism. This is the view that an action should be performed that benefits the majority instead of the minority. In other words, policies should be directed at the COMMON GOOD rather than an individual. This is what causes most of the battles between socialists and right-wingers. Right-wingers generally hate helping the majority. In any case, in the progressive tax case this j

Re:Sorry to disapoint you

[Nyarly]

If by mangled you mean "extremely different." Thanks for the link, which was interesting, but I think there are significant differences between a restructured income tax and a sales tax.

Also note that the sales tax depends on an eventual reimbursement, so a poor family would have to struggle under the burden of a regressive sales tax until the reimbursement cleared. There's a big difference between a dollar today and a dollar six months from now.

Re:Sorry to disapoint you

[tricorn]

A flat income tax can also have a reimbursement feature. Reimbursement doesn't mean you have to "struggle" until you get reimbursed - you're getting reimbursed every year (or your parents, while they're supporting you). What does it matter if it's last year's check or this year's that you just received? Also, note that the Cato NST paper suggests reimbursing through paycheck throughout the year. Only people with no regular payroll income throughout the year would need an annual check, which saves the government a substantial amount of money in check writing and distribution costs.

The problem I have with a NST is the record keeping burden. The rules in the Cato paper, for example, are complex for re-sale of a car or home. Tax it once, put all of the record keeping and reporting burden on business (which already has to keep track), and eliminate all of the complexity for almost everyone else.

We're already paying taxes on the Internet

[Nuclear Elephant]

It's called the Universal Service Fee. All congress is saying is "heck with the Internet, we're going to tax EVERYTHING"

Re:A good move

[Kierthos]

Yeah, because we all know that the local, state and federal governments always use collected taxes properly and fairly, never wasting money on pet projects, pork-barrel crap, and outright wastes of cash.

Frankly, if they all started using the tax monies they collected efficiently and properly, we probably wouldn't need to pay as much.

Kierthos

It's not "permanant" at all

[ironfrost]

"Permanant" means nothing in this context. No government can bind its sucessors, especially with a law like this. The next time the Democrats get in, if they're looking for some extra revenue, it will be easy for them to just repeal this law and start charging Broadband Tax. Or even Bush himself, when it finally dawns on him just how much money he's losing.

Re:It's not "permanant" at all

[jimmy_dean]

Yes, this is very true. Though it is harder to repeal a law than it is to get it as law in the first place.

Re:It's not "permanant" at all

[computerlady]

The article used the term "permanent" as contrasted to the temporary 3-year moratorium that had originally been passed and then renewed.

Not only can Congress change a law, the courts can overturn it as well.

Damn, I was hopping I would get a meter on my pc

[thbigr]

I can see it slowly ticking away, like a water meter , or s Taxi Meter. Then watch it BURST when I het p0rn...

Stuipd(TM) Idea!

[Ender Ryan]

First of all, we ALREADY have public Internet access in most libraries. Second, Internet access is cheap; it can be had for $10/month. Computers are cheap; a decent one can be had for $200, and there's always the option of picking up a used one. Taxing bandwidth would hurt the poor, unless you only tax bandwidth that rich people use.

Considering that over 50% of the U.S. population already has Internet access(since two years ago!), I think your solution is in need of a problem.

Re:A good move

[Mattcelt]

Yeah, 'cause we'd never spend tax money on invading another country or anything.

Leaves door open for Federal Tax

[Helmholtz]

"H.R. 49 would permanently extend a moratorium on certain state and local taxation of online services and electronic commerce, and would eliminate an exception to the prohibition for certain states..."

It looks to me that this is just a little bit of staging for a future Federal tax on internet usage, perhaps interlocked with a Federal internet licensing/watchdog effort pushed through under the guise of "Homeland Security".

The rhetoric would go something like "...CyberSpace has become such an integral part of this nation's economy that it is the job of the Federal Government to protect it from terroristic disruption. In order to fund this hightened level of US Internet security, a Federal Tax will be leveyed against ..." This would also effectively allow the tax payer to pay for the high speed internet of not only the Federal government, but also State governments, who would of course be exempt from the Federal tax.

Of course maybe I'm just paranoid ... I sure hope so.

Re:Leaves door open for Federal Tax

[Peyna]

The one thing that may keep this bill from happening is that it would also repeal any taxes that previously had been grandfathered in. Several localities currently have such taxes, and stand to lose about $80 million a year total in revenue.

I just reviewed the text of the original bill as well as the amendment that is being proposed, and you are right; there is nothing stopped a federal tax.

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

Re:Don't forget the aircraft carrier...

[perly-king-69]

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.

Ummm...the USA didn't spring out of fresh air. It's an offshoot of European colonists and numerous waves of immigrants (Irish, Jewish, Italian, Mexican &c) The 'headstart' comment is laughable.

Anything granted by the government is a hand-out from money taken at gun point from those that produce wealth.

There is a plus side for employers (and society as a whole) to know that their employees don't have to worry about healthcare, childcare &c. The primacy of the market isn't appropriate to all aspects of life.

Re:Don't forget the aircraft carrier...

[mdwh2]

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.

Video games? Like, video games where you play at being soldiers, or perhaps ones where you have to acquire a large military in order to control the world?

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

Funny, I pay for the national health service through taxes. I'm still glad we have it, however.

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.

You do realise that Europeans colonised America? They didn't suddenly start from the stone age again.

Re:Don't forget the aircraft carrier...

[salesgeek]

Ummm...the USA didn't spring out of fresh air. It's an offshoot of European colonists and numerous waves of immigrants (Irish, Jewish, Italian, Mexican &c) The 'headstart' comment is laughable.

LOLx3. My family is made up of a bunch of people the bugois in France, Britain and Germany didn't want. The problem with Europe is that no one rows the boat in the same direction, and when you do its either:

A) Tyrant brings (er... encourages)togather several nations to try to conquer the world. Row row row the boat -- or else.

B) Nations unite against a Tyrant trying to conquer the world. Row Row Row the boat -- or else.

It's ok though. We love our slightly less than responsible, sometimes n'er do well uncle - Europe. Next time somebody comes along and starts bullying you, we'll use our very nice shiny missles, tanks, guns, and of course aircraft carriers to run them off and then we'll rebuild you again. And again.

Of course, that's what you get for sending us good wine, find cheese, nice cars and cool threads from time to time. Just don't be an ass about it.

Re:Don't forget the aircraft carrier...

[salesgeek]

You do realise that Europeans colonised America? They didn't suddenly start from the stone age again.

You are right about that. Thank you for your support.

Re:Don't forget the aircraft carrier...

[perly-king-69]

It's ok though. We love our slightly less than responsible, sometimes n'er do well uncle - Europe. Next time somebody comes along and starts bullying you, we'll use our very nice shiny missles, tanks, guns, and of course aircraft carriers to run them off and then we'll rebuild you again. And again.

Seems like you get the raw end of the deal then.. .you pay taxes for our defence, we pay taxes for our social security. Result!

Re:Don't forget the aircraft carrier...

[Chibi Merrow]

Except that we pay significantly less taxes than most EU member nations... What social security is there without physical security? I doubt the people living in Kosovo for instance would've been so happy about a great dental plan while militants were kicking in the doors and executing them.
Governments should build roads and provide defense, not support their citizens with social programs...

Re:Don't forget the aircraft carrier...

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

You do realize that most of the Balkans were nothing like the rest of Europe (they were struggling countries after the collapse of Communism). If anything, someone in USA probably paid more for social policies than anyone in the Balkans at that time. If you want to attack social policies, stick with left-leaning European core. Attempting to bring in the former Communist states does not prove anything.

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Don't forget the aircraft carrier...

[Chibi Merrow]

I was just pointing out that many people (myself included) feel that the taxes we spend on defense are much better spent than money going to "social security" programs. The Balkans were just a convenient example of how defense is more valuable than social programs.

Re:Don't forget the aircraft carrier...

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

lol... nothing like a conservative trying to equate a liberal to a child, while he/she purports to be an adult...

I hope you do realize that USA was subsidizing Europe for its own interests. Do you really think Americans would subsidize Europe for a charitable cause? Some Americans don't even want to spend money on their OWN citizens so what are the chances of USA spending money on some foreign country?

Your understanding of the world leaves a lot to be desired. I suggest you start by understanding something called REALPOLITIK. That is the policy that USA uses. Very little of USA's foreign policy is based on ethical or humanatarian concerns, or on theoretical objectives. Think about why USA props up and defends the highly corrupt and vile Middle Eastern governments. Why do you think there are American soldiers in Saudi Arabia defending the monarchy? Do you think it is because USA is trying to subsidize Saudi Arabia's development? Of course not! USA spent more helping Saddam Hussein in the late 80's than on the homeless in America. Ever wonder why? Is it because USA cares more about Iraq than itself? Of course not!

As far as your military comments are concerned, they don't make sense given that USA is an imperial power. Imperialists need a strong infantry, strong navy, etc so that they can invade countries and hold on to them. What you are saying will strip USA of its offense in order to strengthen defense.

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Don't forget the aircraft carrier...

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

But your example is completely meaningless.. Countries like Yugoslavia/Serbia/etc were probably spending more on their military than even USA (relative to GDP). What made the genocide of the Serbs, Croats, etc quick? Their strong militaries...

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Don't forget the aircraft carrier...

[perly-king-69]

Except that we pay significantly less taxes than most EU member nations...

Judging by the comments earlier in this thread you seem to work more, pay a broadly similar amount of tax and get less from it because you're busy protecting us from ourselves...

Besides Kosovo isn't part of what most people understand as 'Europe' (namely the members of the EU)

Governments should support the poorest in their society by means of health and education programmes, not ignoring them for the sake of building warships.

Re:Don't forget the aircraft carrier...

[Chibi Merrow]

Why should the government provide health care and education for the poor? Why not private charities? Why is it right for the government to steal from the successful and redistribute it to those who aren't willing to support themselves?
I could understand some support for people incapable of working due to some physical or mental ailment, but even in that case it seems better that a private organization handle it than the government.
In the US we spend many many times our defense budget on mostly worthless social programs, welfare, and social security... No one gets denied something so that an aircraft carrier can be built; quite the opposite... Before the Congress changed hands in '96 the defense budget was cut to ribbons to allow for more people to become dependant on the government... Even in recent years when defense spending picked back up, social programs have only grown bigger. Look at the 400 billion dollar prescription drug benefit that's being rammed down our throats... that alone is almost on par with our yearly defense budget...

Re:Don't forget the aircraft carrier...

[perly-king-69]

Why should the government provide health care and education for the poor? Why not private charities? Why is it right for the government to steal from the successful and redistribute it to those who aren't willing to support themselves?

Because it actually benefits the 'rich' and 'successful' not to have a social underclass, unable to afford basics like healthcare, medicines, education &c. We tried all that in the middle ages with the feudal system. It don't work.

Re:Don't forget the aircraft carrier...

[Chibi Merrow]

Then let the rich and successful do it through philanthropy. Don't take the money from them at gunpoint.

Re:Don't forget the aircraft carrier...

[drsmithy]

Why should the government provide health care and education for the poor?

Because the relatively "poor" make up the majority of their citizens.

Why not private charities?

Because attitudes like yours mean not enough money is put into private charities to make them useful.

Why is it right for the government to steal from the successful and redistribute it to those who aren't willing to support themselves?

Because if it weren't for the corrupt governments and the friends of the rich in them, most of those "successful" people wouldn't be anywhere near as "successful".

Not to mention if it weren't for all those working class people, very few of the rich would have become rich as well.

I could understand some support for people incapable of working due to some physical or mental ailment, but even in that case it seems better that a private organization handle it than the government.

No private organisation behaves responsibly without being forced to.

In the US we spend many many times our defense budget on mostly worthless social programs, welfare, and social security...

Depends on your perception of "worthless", really.

No one gets denied something so that an aircraft carrier can be built; quite the opposite...

Which explains why no-one in the US was wanting for food, education, healthcare or housing before the last aircraft carrier was commissioned, right ?

Re:Don't forget the aircraft carrier...

[perly-king-69]

Then let the rich and successful do it through philanthropy.

Doesn't work. Remember Reagans 'trickle-down'? Give the rich money and it'll work it's way down to the poor? Didn't work.

Basically, unless you offer equality of opportunity to everyone in society to become what they want you owe it to those who you've denied that opportunity to. Equality of opportunity isn't possible just isn't happening in your system, witnessed by the (relatively) recent appearance of ruling families (Kennedys, Bushs Clintons).

Re:Don't forget the aircraft carrier...

[Chibi Merrow]

"trickle-down" was a phrase used as a propaganda spin on an economic policy that lead America into a boom-time that raised the standards of living for EVERYONE. No one gave the rich anything in the Reagan years. Everyone's taxes were cut, and cutting someone's taxes is not GIVING them something, it's just TAKING less of what they own.
Towards the end of Reagan's seperate term all the way through the end of Clinton's first term our economy was very healthy. Then the effects of the Clinton tax hike came into effect and pulled the handbrake on the whole thing.

Our society DOES have equal opportunity; anyone with a good idea on how to provide a good or service people want can succeed giving enough sweat and elbow grease. Society doesn't have to gaurantee you the right "to become what you want", if you want to be a journalist or you want to be a fireman you have to work at it just the same.

There are no ruling families in the US. Recent? Do you know how long Ted Kennedy has been in office? That's no dynasty, he's simply riding on the coat tails of John and Robert Kennedy. George W. Bush is NOT the first President's son to become President, and Hillary Clinton (unfortunately enough) is popular with a certain segment of voters, which happen to make up the majority in New York.

Re:Don't forget the aircraft carrier...

[Chibi Merrow]

Because the relatively "poor" make up the majority of their citizens.

That still doesn't explain WHY they deserve a handout. The government's not there to fix all the problems in your life. It's there to build roads and provide defense and not much else.

Because attitudes like yours mean not enough money is put into private charities to make them useful.

Lies. My parents donate to charities out of every paycheck and despite being a college student barely scraping by I still manage to donate, too. If we didn't have to pay nearly half our income to the government, we'd probably donate alot more, too.

Because if it weren't for the corrupt governments and the friends of the rich in them, most of those "successful" people wouldn't be anywhere near as "successful".

Not to mention if it weren't for all those working class people, very few of the rich would have become rich as well.

Why do you believe that the only way someone can be successful is through some nefarious means? What about the people who simply work hard and do well in life?

No private organisation behaves responsibly without being forced to.

Are you for real? I'M pessimistic about the whole "inherent goodness of man" thing, but that comment is just uncalled for! For every private organization that you hear about misbehaving, there are hundreds you never hear about because not misbehaving isn't news worthy. How many governments out there can you point to as always behaving responsibly? I'll give my money to a charity, thanks. That way when I see the charity mis-spending my money, I can start giving it to someone else. If the government mis-spends my money, they'll continue to take it from me at gun point.

Which explains why no-one in the US was wanting for food, education, healthcare or housing before the last aircraft carrier was commissioned, right ?

If they were, there's nothing the Government can do to help them anyway. It's not the Government's job to provide for people's needs; and besides that, they CAN'T. No matter what the Government does or how much it spends, it's simply impossible for them to provide for everyone's needs. That's part of the reason it's not their job. The other reason is that the Constitution set out the idea of a limited government with a very strict set of responsibilities of which feeding the poor is NOT one of them.

Re:Don't forget the aircraft carrier...

[Chibi Merrow]

Worthless to whom? Isn't it quite important for a government to ensure the needs of its society are met? Aren't programs like these a pretty good way of dong that?
No, it's not. It is not the Government's responsibility to see to it that people's needs are met.

Re:Don't forget the aircraft carrier...

[drsmithy]

That still doesn't explain WHY they deserve a handout.

Because the job of government is to provide for its constituency.

Incidentally, why do you think the "poor" *don't* deserve to be given food, education, healthcare, etc to the same standard as the "rich" ?

The government's not there to fix all the problems in your life.

Granted. I wouldn't expect them to buy me a new car.

Lies. My parents donate to charities out of every paycheck and despite being a college student barely scraping by I still manage to donate, too.

Yet the overpowering attitude being displayed in your posting is that the poor deserve to be poor. Why is that ?

Why do you believe that the only way someone can be successful is through some nefarious means?

I don't believe it's the _only_ way, merely the most common.

What about the people who simply work hard and do well in life?

Most of them don't get rich. Simple statistical fact.

People only getting paid what they're worth are not rich and never will be. There is no way _anyone_ is "working hard" enough to justify multi-tens-of-millions salaries. And similar sums given away in "golden handshakes" (or "golden parachutes" I believe they're called in the US) are similarly disgusting. CEOs who turn shareholders into paupers are *rewarded* for it ? WTF ?

Are you for real?

Yep - although "no" might have been a bit harsh - most small/tiny businesses often aren't too bad.

You seriously think things like minimum wage, minimum employment ages, Workplace Health & Safety, maternity leave, flexi-time, etc would exist without legislation ?

I'M pessimistic about the whole "inherent goodness of man" thing, but that comment is just uncalled for!

It's not the "inherent goodness of man" I don't believe in, it's the lack of that trait in the people running the companies (and governments). Very, very few people get rich by being nice - and most of those who do are born into it.

For every private organization that you hear about misbehaving, there are hundreds you never hear about because not misbehaving isn't news worthy.

Or their misbehaviour wasn't news worthy.

How many governments out there can you point to as always behaving responsibly?

Very few and fairly rarely. Because they're run by the same types of greedy, ruthless rich people we're talking about. How many poor politicians do you know about ?

I'll give my money to a charity, thanks.

I don't. And I don't because it is my belief that the things charities are doing *are* the job of Government (which is why I pay taxes).

Or, to put it another way, should I suddenly find myself unemployed and/or incapable of earning an income, I'd much rather rely on the (effectively) bottomless pits of government money to keep me alive than pocket change thrown down from the balconies.

That way when I see the charity mis-spending my money, I can start giving it to someone else.

I've heard if you don't like your Government you can vote them out, too.

If the government mis-spends my money, they'll continue to take it from me at gun point.

I find it ironic you seem to be implying money is misspent on "social programs", yet you give to charities who spend your money on exactly the same things.

If spending money on helping the poor is the right thing to do, and spending money on defence and the like is the right thing to do, exactly where is tax revenue being "mis-spent" ?

If they were, there's nothing the Government can do to help them anyway.

Bullshit. And you accuse *me* of exaggerating ? Even ignoring a bunch of other things, at the very *least* the US's public healthcare and education systems are atrocious.

It's not the Government's job to provide for people's needs; and besides that, they CAN'T.

Yes it is (for what other reason does govern

Re:Don't forget the aircraft carrier...

[Chibi Merrow]

Please excuse my late reply, but I've been busy...

Incidentally, why do you think the "poor" *don't* deserve to be given food, education, healthcare, etc to the same standard as the "rich" ?

When did I say the poor don't deserve anything? The rich aren't given anything, so why should the poor? I think neither deserves to be provided for by society, they deserve nothing, they will get what they earn. I don't have a problem with limited help (ala unemployment) for people between jobs, but the government is NOT there to provide for your livelihood. The government "provides" for its constituency by protecting them from external threats and criminals and by assuring that commerce can proceed.

Yet the overpowering attitude being displayed in your posting is that the poor deserve to be poor. Why is that ?

I don't think anyone deserves anything. I want to see every person in the US be successful and happy, but taking money from me and giving it to them is not the way to accomplish that. The only way is for them to be self sufficient.

Most of them don't get rich. Simple statistical fact.

People only getting paid what they're worth are not rich and never will be.

I'll agree that no one will ever get rich working for someone else. But that doesn't mean they won't be comfortable in their lifestyle.

You seriously think things like minimum wage, minimum employment ages, Workplace Health & Safety, maternity leave, flexi-time, etc would exist without legislation ?

Minimum wage in some ways hurts American workers... As low paying jobs are shipped overseas to where there is no minimum wage so that companies can remain competitive. But besides that, did I specifically say anything bad about such legislation? While I don't always agree with it, there is room for some regulation of businesses by government. It's just a razor's edge that you rest on between under-regulating and over-regulating an economy. Too little regulation leads to monopolies (which is where capitalism breaks down) and too much regulation leads to socialism (which is where the economy breaks down).

I don't. And I don't because it is my belief that the things charities are doing *are* the job of Government (which is why I pay taxes).

See above. I pay Federal taxes to fund the military and pay for things like roads that are necessary for commerce. Charity cases should be handled by charities.

Or, to put it another way, should I suddenly find myself unemployed and/or incapable of earning an income, I'd much rather rely on the (effectively) bottomless pits of government money to keep me alive than pocket change thrown down from the balconies.

But it's not a bottomless pit and it's NOT the Government's money, it's the taxpayers money and it shouldn't be taken from them to buy votes! The situation you describe isn't the situation I'm against. A small safety net for people between jobs is one thing, that's called Unemployment Benefits, and that's payed for by business owners. Welfare is something entirely different. It's a long term way to have taxpayers pay for you to be a leech on society, provide nothing useful, and make you vote for the people you're now dependent on.

I've heard if you don't like your Government you can vote them out, too.

Yes! But once an entitlement (such as Welfare) is on the books, you'll never get rid of it! Only limit it's scope and growth. And with more entitlements being created every year (see: Paid Medical Leave, Prescription Drug Coverage, etc)

I find it ironic you seem to be implying money is misspent on "social programs", yet you give to charities who spend your money on exactly the same things.

If spending money on helping the poor is the right thing to do, and spending money on defence and the like is the right thing to do, exactly where is tax revenue being "mis-spent" ?

Re:How could they legally tax those products anywa

[deanc]

You're correct. What the congressional bill is declaring is that the transport of bits is inherently interstate-commerce and not the province of any single state.

Re:How could they legally tax those products anywa

[Surreal_Streaker]

Isn't that part of the fundamental way our government is set up, so that states cannot levy taxes upon cargo from other states?

In much the same way that the US can hold a Frenchman responsible for a murder that he commits in the US, the states can tax transactions which originate or terminate in their state. Until recently the mechanism for doing this was considered too much of a burden on business to be enforceable. (For this to be practicable a backroom business would need to know tax info for all 50 states.) As a result the onus of paying relevant taxes on most interstate sales has been placed by the states onto the consumer.

The states have been working together to come up with a unified tax structure for interstate sales to reduce the complexity so that sales tax can be collected on all interstate transactions.

Re:Isn't this a state thing?

[I am Kobayashi]

The federal government has the right to regulate "interstate commerce" under the commerce clause of the United States Constitution. (Article I, Section 8(3)) (Granting Congress the power to "regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.")
The U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted this very very broadly in the past to include activites that occur solely within one state, but that arguably affect the supply and demand marketplace such that it effects interstate commerce. The current Court has started narrowing this clause a bit, most recently (I believe) when they struck down the Violence Against Women Act a few years ago.... (Congress enacted the VAWA using a couple different arguments, one was that they had the power under the Commerce Clause - the Court did not agree...)

Re:cool

[bludstone]

I have tons of books plus a gba-sp w/ plenty of spare batteries.

No worries! :D

New Taxes?

[thogard]

I didn't read the article because I just got an urgent importaint message.

I just got this email saying the bell company was about to put a $50 per month tax on all modems. We must write congress at once to stop this. Most of us can afford to call BBSes if this goes through so write a letter now!

the internet tollbooth

[kraksmoka]

well, that eliminates the other party threatening the freedom of the internet. what this seems to state is that there should be no tolls or taxes on data transfer over the net, as if it was a physical highway, nor stamps as if it was a document.

of course the world is just waking up to the other party (which effectively has succeeded in) erecting a toll booth on the net, and that would be microsloth and their IE tax, which is built into their winbloze tax.

Is VoIP Unique to the Internet?

[Mikkeles]

I wonder how this will affect Vonage 's fight with Minnesota over the proposal to tax VoIP?

Re:Is VoIP Unique to the Internet?

[jon787]

It will nullifying Minnesota's law, plain and simple.

Re:Is VoIP Unique to the Internet?

[Mikkeles]

' It will nullifying Minnesota's law, plain and simple.'

I should like to think so, but, playing devil's advocate for a moment: VoIP is really just voice communication over a wire (or wireless). How is this significantly different from POTS? There are certainly arguments being made that ISPs should be treated like phone companies w.r.t. responsibility (viz.: none) for content transmitted over the network.

(Rather than rehash it all over again here, it's probably better to at least review the commentary in the original slashdot article

Interesting

[ajs318]

Where I'm from, we don't have a written constitution, just the general expectation that anything you would not dare do to the Queen, you would not do to an ordinary citizen either.

But if we did have a written constitution, I'd be pushing for a clause along the lines that all means to the same end were equally valid, and any future invention that accomplishes the same ends as an existing invention should not be given any special treatment unless there were compelling reasons beyond mere novelty.

Good Job!

[Bruha]

I'm really happy to see this working it's way up the ladder. Hopefully it'll make it through! While I dont mind paying sales taxes on items purchased over the network in my own state I however am against taxes on email (Where's the public burden?), bandwidth/bit taxes (I dont get taxed per call) both of which would of been extremely damaging to small businesses and would of killed off a lot of small websites in the US.

Re:Isn't this a state thing?

[danb35]

The Uniform Commercial Code has nothing whatsoever to do with the Federal government--it was created by a legal think-tank (either the American Law Institute or the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, or both) and enacted individually by the states. -1 factually incorrect.

Re: Its just temporary

[bussdriver]

they will eventually have to tax stuff. isn't ebay like 2% of the GNP in the USA now?

With cities starting to get into internet backbone business, various fees, that could be called taxes may emerge. Would this prevent that? possibly, they are so stupid when it comes to technology...

Prohibited taxation?

[El Camino SS]

Can you remember the last time that Congress actually prohibited a form of taxation?

Well, Congress no. America, yes.

Yeah, some time around 1773 in Boston harbor... the last time I checked. They also did a decent job all the way up to 1787 as well.

Oh, and the 1860's were bad for individual state taxation. But we fixed that too.

Re:Isn't this a state thing?

[I8TheWorm]

enacted individually by the states

you forgot to add ....thereby making it Federal in nature (and almost by definition).

Bandwidth should never be taxed.

[El Camino SS]

Taxing information restricts information by adding a cost to your information and ideas. That is in effect charging for ideas to everyone not just companies that have consultants. America was founded on the ability of not being charged to death or hounded for expressing your ideas. That culture is what made us invent things that no one else did, like say, planes, manufacturing lines, the telephone, the television, a man on the moon, and the freaking internet.

Besides, bandwidth and information is a two way avenue, that now borders on macrogroups, which we are in right now. Who's responsibility is it to pay?

The next time a worm writer decides to flood the internet with a 45% increase in overall volume and YOU GET TAXED FOR IT, then you'll change your tune.

Should I pay for all of the spam I get? Even with SpamAssasin that is bandwidth that has to get to me before I kill it. So I should be taxed for an A-hole like Alan Ralsky who freeloads off of the system and jams my inbox?

I think you and the politicians of the world should tax REAL THINGS. Just a humble suggestion.

Changed during the Depression?

[Heisenbug]

"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."

Perhaps not; don't forget the old saw about America starting out as the land of the free for white male land owners. That stuff's in the Constitution too.

Now here's where I introduce my pet economic theory: we don't play by those rules anymore, and the reason we don't is that if we stuck to pure capitalism, the worker's revolution would have popped up just like Marx predicted. I think this almost happened during the great depression, but then FDR came into office and saved the day by, what, mixing in the socialism. Social security, medicare, union protection, welfare, government work programs, all started out or given a big kick during his administration.

The result is, we have a system where the rich are given strong incentive to invest, and the working class is protected, and we dampen down the boom/bust cycle that Marx accurately observed to the point where the revolution never comes.

So now, indeed, I would argue that a purpose of our government is to cycle money back from the wealthy elite down to the working class, like an aerator in a fish tank, to keep the whole system functioning happily. Of course it will all rise to the top again -- that's how the system works.

***

Now, that's all I had to say that I'm willing to stand behind. But here's some raw speculation: over the past ten years, which were prosperous for everyone, the very wealthy became richer by something like 40%, while the rest became richer by something like 4%. Order of magnitude guesses, but based on credible sources I don't happen to recall. :)

Now that the wealthy are in power, they're working to consolidate this position, with a tax cut that gives back $0 to 30% of Americans, and $100,000 a year to people like Dick Cheney.

So what happens with this kind of lopsided distribution? There's plenty of money to invest, but no money among the consumers to buy. With no demand, there's no incentive to invest, and that money starts to sit idle. Money sitting idle = stagnation = depression.

The economy is not something I claim to understand, or that anyone who seems knowledgeable claims to be able to predict, but ... it's a compelling case, isn't it? And if I'm right, we're just digging ourselves deeper and deeper ...

Re:Changed during the Depression?

[goldspider]

"I think this almost happened during the great depression, but then FDR came into office and saved the day by, what, mixing in the socialism."

That's a popular misconception; it was the benefit of a ramped-up war-time economy (read: LOTS of military spending) that brought us out of the Great Depression, not social security.

Not to mention that Social Security was never intended to be permanent (like federal income taxes).

"Now that the wealthy are in power, they're working to consolidate this position, with a tax cut that gives back $0 to 30% of Americans, and $100,000 a year to people like Dick Cheney."

Maybe that's because 30% of Americans don't pay federal income taxes, while people like Dick Cheney pay millions in taxes.

Re:Changed during the Depression?

[mOdQuArK!]

So now, indeed, I would argue that a purpose of our government is to cycle money back from the wealthy elite down to the working class, like an aerator in a fish tank, to keep the whole system functioning happily. Of course it will all rise to the top again -- that's how the system works.

Actually, I love the fish tank metaphor. Instead of a "trickle down" economic theory, I believe in the "bubble up" economic policy - if you can get money into the hands of the poor (preferably in a socially-beneficial way rather than out-and-out welfare), then they will have a chance to dig themselves out of their economic situation, and in the meantime they'll be wanting to buy stuff, causing lots of demand, which in turn makes jobs, which will keep the economy chugging along, etc.

It's also like trying to make more plants grow in a field by adding fertilizer instead of giving individual plants direct shots of "Supergro" - you might not be able to control which plants grow up, but you'll sure have a ton of growth with huge amounts of diversity vs. a few really healthy plants. What do you think is better for a society?

I figure it's pretty useless to design an economic policy around the rich - almost no matter what you come up with (barring shooting them all & taking all their money), the rich have the resources to make it work out for themselves. So, when you design an economic policy for the general benefit of society (instead of just the few rich people), you can pretty much concentrate on ways to benefit the poor & middle-class, and let the rich fend for themselves.

Re:Changed during the Depression?

[Chibi Merrow]

I hope you mean by 'a socially-beneficial way' getting the poor jobs... Because unless they're somehow employed in such a way as to bring in a steady income, you're not solving the problem.

I'm rather confused by your mention of diversity, however... If I'm fertilizing a corn field, I want corn... Your metaphor could use some work.

A better plant metaphor would be watching to see what plants grow best and using them to seed your next crop. ie: Successful businesses/individuals should be encouraged, not punished by having more of their income taken from them.

Re:Changed during the Depression?

[countvlad]

Well, I like at least half of what you've said here:

The wealthy should be given a reason to invest; since people rarely keep large quantities of physical cash laying around, the majority of wealth is kept in banks or as investments. If banks then turn around and loan out that money to, say, small businesses, invdividuals, etc, or invest that money in some other way (be it the stock market or whatever), then that money _does_ trickle down, at least to some degree.

Having the government reach in and taking [a disproportiaonate amount of] money from people is simply wrong. Just because some people are unable to work is no reason for them to get a free ride courtesy of the rest of society. People should depend on family, not government, for such assistance in their lives. If all else fails, turn to charity, but not to government. There's no reason I should work 50 weeks out of the year so someone else can take all 52 off. People unwilling to work are just SOL: they need to get with the program. Either choose to be a productive member of society or choose to get the hell out.

As for tax breaks, the government should give money back to the people they took it from. If the government recieves 90% of their income from the "rich", then 90% of any tax break should go right back to them: anything else and you're doing the accounting equivalent of doublespeak and simply shifting tax brakets around.

Why do so many people want an All-In-One government and not an All-In-One operating system...

Re:Changed during the Depression?

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

YOu have any sources to back up the claim that 30% of Americans don't pay taxes?

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:Changed during the Depression?

[eatdave13]

I think you need to think more. Or less. Whatever, you're just plain wrong on about 7,000 levels.

Re:Changed during the Depression?

[mOdQuArK!]

I hope you mean by 'a socially-beneficial way' getting the poor jobs...

Yes, including paying for necessary training. Unfortunately, the most direct way of accomplishing this is for the government to hire people and/or pay for training. (Paying for training might just mean that the society foots the bill for a decent educational system.) And there seems to be a distinct lack of enthusiasm in the general public for paying the taxes necessary to finance this kind of activity (which I completely understand, since it sure feels like all the taxes that I pay at the moment are being wasted on rich and/or lazy people.)

I'm rather confused by your mention of diversity, however... If I'm fertilizing a corn field, I want corn... Your metaphor could use some work.

I didn't actually explicitly say that I was farming for a particular crop, although I will certainly take the blame for not making it that clear. I was actually just thinking more of a big area of plant life, like a forest. If you drop lots of fertilizer on such an area, you'll get a massive amount of growth (since you are basically providing a huge dose of food for the organisms at the bottom of the food chain). You don't necessarily have any control over what kind of growth, but the ecosystem will work out the balance itself over time.

Farming is more of a metaphor for a state-controlled economy, which I believe has been empirically determined to be impractical.

I certainly believe that, like an area of forest, it is much healther for there to be a great deal of diversity in the economy. It provides a much larger number of niches for the inhabitants, plus has the ability to respond to a larger range of problems than a more tightly-controlled economy/area of land.

Re:Changed during the Depression?

[mOdQuArK!]

That's why I qualified my statement (really loosely, I'll admit) with "socially-beneficial".

I don't think that just handing people money will be socially-beneficial. You might pay for them to go to school and get training/education (with their progress monitored, of course) - with the eventual hope that they will make good productive citizens (or at least have no excuse not to).

At the very least, the government could directly hire people to do some useful work which might not be cost-effective for private industry (keeping cities/parks/national reserves clean/monitored, help little ladies get groceries, etc). They'll work relatively inexpensively, but at a wage where they can actually make a living, get trained to have good work ethics while helping society out, etc. They'll spend most of the money they make trying to improve their own situation, which can only help the economy.

Of course, with the current societal attitude ("let'm go to hell - *I* don't wanna pay for anything"), this kind of thing will never happen.

Re:Changed during the Depression?

[mOdQuArK!]

Ahhhh...that must be why you didn't describe any of those 7000 levels, since you would've felt bad about crushing any of my responses with your devastating logic and factual backup. I really appreciate the consideration.

Re:Changed during the Depression?

[Chibi Merrow]

I'd be willing to pay for a state funded education program if the one they already had didn't suck so bad... But then again, if public education wasn't such a failure, we wouldn't need another education program... Give the money to the people and let them decide where they'll be educated...

How exactly do the rich benefit from your tax dollars? :)

The current tax system in the US doesn't tax the lower 50% of income earners whatsoever... And in fact gives them thousands of dollars in 'Earned Income Credit' at the end of the year just for being poor... This does nothing to improve their situation and in fact gives them incentive to not improve it. To use your example from earlier (which is much more understandable now, thanks) if you continue to spread fertilizer in the area this can actually cause an outbreak of funguses and disease that will undermine the healthy growth of plants. Plus with all the fertilizer spread around, it becomes harder for some plants to take root... and will allow other plants that probably shouldn't be growing there to grow more easily (fertilizer helps weeds, too)
I knew of a man who was a single father barely scratching by... Who started working extra hours and odd jobs here and there and managed to take home about an extra 1000 dollars at the end of the year because of it... Who then lost almost double that in EIC for making more money... Where's his incentive to succeed?
Every social program to help the needy I've seen has always created a huge incentive to stay poor... While most private charities I've seen do their darndest to get their recipients on their feet and self sufficient. I'd rather people willingly give money to charities than have the government take it from them by force.

Re:Changed during the Depression?

[Heisenbug]

Re: popular misconception: I'm aware that the economy didn't really improve until WW2, but that was over ten years after the stock market crash in 1929. FDR came into office in 1932. That's a lot of years when he was impacting the economy and the war wasn't. I stand by my original thesis that his reforms prevented mass revolt -- long before WW2 was a factor.

Re: 30% of Americans: that's more or less correct. But it once again doesn't impact my original thesis, that the wealthy are working to increase the gap in wealth. The tax cut is promoted as relief for all Americans, but in fact it's targeted at the specific taxes that are predominantly paid by the wealthy. I understand that there are reasons for this; it's still true.

(As a side note, I'm real annoyed at the way they sold it by saying that the 'average' American would save $1000 a year, or whatever -- when in fact the median American would save, what, a quarter of that? Someone said that it's like saying me and Bill Gates have an average net worth of $40 billion dollars -- it doesn't exactly help me pay my rent. Now that's fuzzy math.)

And having now painted myself as a readily ignorable liberal, I'm off to a more techy article where we can argue about things that don't matter. :)

Re:Changed during the Depression?

[eatdave13]

OK, I'll bite.

Giving money to the poor is the wrong answer. I grew up around the poor, my friends and parents were the poor.

You gave money to my parents, welfare to be exact. They sat around the house all day and never looked for work. You gave them a choice, get a job, get a degree, or starve. They took the easiest choice. You gave money to my mother so she could get a teaching degree. She went for 3 1/2 years before deciding that she really didn't want to do it. You gave her money for a nursing degree. She managed to get her LPN, and then decided it just wasn't for her. My father managed to finish 2 semesters before deciding that a 40 was a much better way to spend the money.

My friends, at 16-20, had the same crap jobs that I did, except while I held the same job for a year before finding something better, they managed to stay employed for an average of a month before losing the job, staying unemployed for 2-3 months, and then finding something else that sucked equally bad, never attempting to find something better. They went to work tripping on acid and burned themselves on the frier, went to work drunk and got sent home, smoked pot while they were emptying the trash, lost track of time and stayed out there for a half hour, or just decided to just stay home and get high. Granted, I got drunk, high, and tripped too, but somehow I managed to realize that a job was more valuable than a buzz.

I know how the poor are. They are NOT worth investing in. Any of the poor that are worth it will manage to get out of their situation by themselves. If you dump a pile of cash on them, they will buy drugs, get drunk, decide it's time to get married and start a family now that they have 3K in the bank, and generally undo everything you've done to help them.

Re:Changed during the Depression?

[mOdQuArK!]

I said "socially-beneficial" in my comment. I don't consider just handing money to people socially-beneficial (sorry for not making that clear). I was thinking more along the lines of paying them for working and/or training, but not for not doing anything.

Re:Changed during the Depression?

[eatdave13]

Paying them do to what exactly? Pick up trash in the park? It's beneath them, just ask.

Granted, there are exceptions, I like to think of myself as one, but the exceptions will get out of their situation with or without help. The return on the investment is not worth it. For every 1 worthwhile person you help, you'll be throwing money at 20 no-hopes.

Stupid EU laws

[0123456]

Tell the EU to go screw themselves: there's nothing in the EU worth visiting anyway, and your EU customers will like you for it.

Or are you really going to start collecting Somalian Sales Tax, Haitian Sales Tax, Saudi Sales Tax, Nigerian Sales Tax and all the taxes that every other nation on the planet would like to force you to collect for them for free?

"I've been told in the EU it is illegal to display prices without VAT"

Not true: most electronics prices in the UK have no VAT included... it's horrific to see just how much those prices are loaded up with tax, especially when you consider that there's probably plenty of import duties on top. The tax on the camcorder I bought a few years back would have paid for a flight to New York to buy one tax-free, and still left a couple of hundred dollars to spend on beer and loose women.

Re:Stupid EU laws

[radish]

"I've been told in the EU it is illegal to display prices without VAT"

Not true: most electronics prices in the UK have no VAT included... it's horrific to see just how much those prices are loaded up with tax, especially when you consider that there's probably plenty of import duties on top.

Actually it is true. All prices in advertisments/listings aimed at consumers must include VAT (although they can list an ex-vat price as well if they want, but they must emphasise the inc-vat one). The only exception is for material aimed soley at business purchasers (for instance office supply catalogues) which still must display both, but don't have to emphasise the inc-vat price.

Re:Stupid EU laws

[0123456]

"All prices in advertisments/listings aimed at consumers must include VAT (although they can list an ex-vat price as well if they want, but they must emphasise the inc-vat one)."

If that's true, then most electronics ads in the UK are breaking the law, since they almost always have the tax-free price in big print and either 'prices do not include VAT' hidden away somewhere, or the tax-added price in tiny little letters elsewhere.

Re:Stupid EU laws

[radish]

If they are, then yes they are. I'm in the UK, and all the ads I see include VAT these days (this used to be a real problem, hence the new law). Like I said, some places will claim the "business" exemption, but they're treading a fine line. I haven't got any dead tree ads to hand, but looking online:

Dabs, Dell and Dixons all give the tax inclusive price as the headline. In my random sample of 3 sites, that gives me a 100% hit rate.

If you find sites advertising to consumers with non-tax-inclusive prices as the headline, report them to trading standards.

civics 101

[Jodka]

...I think that in the future a 'bandwidth tax' or some such thing may not be a bad idea.

Some people through the Internet have more access to information than others, this information makes their life better. They can look for better jobs, be better informed on what is going on in the world and make more productive decisions accordingly. This situation will get worse as more and more services move exclusively online. The info poor will have fewer opportunities.

So let's make if more difficult for the poor to get net access by raising its price with taxation. Riiiight...

Then let's create priveleged groups elibible for the government handouts which defray the high cost of net access. This will stigmatize the poor as recipients of the government handouts necessary to purchase what they could have afforded if it were not taxed by the government to pay for the handouts. Though stigmatizing the poor will not be a problem once politicians start giving the same handouts to corporations to promote technology growth in American Business and create American jobs and make America strong so the terrorists will not win. Then congressional candidates can extort campaign donations from a richer pool of special-interest groups by promising to grant them government-sponsored net access. These groups will then be be beholden to their rainmakers, the politicians and bureaucrats who hand out the favors. This will insure that politicians will have a threat to hold over the heads of wealthy lobby groups come election time. And let's fund a new government agency for administering the handout program. Or we could let the IRS take care of it by adding another exemption to the tax code because, lets face it, tax forms are just too simple.

Yes, that is sarcasm and I am a critic. But just ignore me. As we all know I am really against your plan because I hate the poor and I want the terrorists to win.

Re:How could they legally tax those products anywa

[jratcliffe]

States certainly can't tax transactions that go _through_ their state (i.e. Oklahoma can't tax an Amazon transaction between my computer in Massachusetts and their server in Seattle just because that transaction takes place over backbone lines), but they certainly can tax transactions that take place with local buyers. The rules are exactly the same for internet and catalog purchases:

1. If your state has a sales tax, you are legally obliged to pay it, even on things you buy out of state. It's called a use tax - if I buy a computer from Dell in TX, and have it shipped to Mass, I'm liable for the 5% Mass tax.
2. The vendor (i.e. Dell) is only obliged to COLLECT the tax if they have a physical presence (called "nexus") in Mass. Otherwise, it's my responsibility to pay the tax directly to the state. In practice, nobody does this, so most internet transactions _appear_ tax free, although they're technically not.

Re:How could they legally tax those products anywa

[Sloppy]

The way they could argue around that, is that they wouldn't be taxing a cargo, but rather, they would be taxing the service of providing access. Imagine if Oklahoma had a toll road that just happened to be the shortest path from Texas to Kansas.

No taxes - yet.

[nightsweat]

This is known as the "We're gonna tax the crap out of you but not yet" bill.

The "exemption" will run out and it'll be a question of proactively passing a ban on taxes again. That won't happen forever.

In other news...

[Izago909]

The president found a source of money large enough to occupy... errrr... liberate Iraq for another 6 months. Also... The president read in a newspaper that it is possible to tax the internet. A veto on HR 49 is expected.

Re:In other news...

[Izago909]

Actually.. all political parties are evil, idiot. Though a partys' words may say that their concern is for the voter, their actions show that their primary duty is to the party.
Cutting taxes is a tool used on constituents to make them think that politicians really care. If politicians really cared, they wouldn't be catering to the selfish wants of individuals (capital gains/dividends/etc tax cuts), they would find better solutions to more pressing social concerns. I feel so loved by people who want to cut my capital gains taxes. Now I don't have to sell my summer estate in the Hamptons in order to keep my winter ranch in the southwest. These are truly good people!!
If President Bubba needs money, and there isn't any to spare, he isn't going to say "Oh well, let's wait for the next fiscal year." He's either going to tax or add another exponent to the rate of the national debit. Saying republicans don't tax is as foolish as saying they will take a pay cut so they can fund a program that needs it. The real tax difference between the 2 parties isn't IF they will tax... it's what they will tax for.

Please keep your propaganda to yourself...

I wonder how this will affect the VOIP issue

[BoomerSooner]

Since states are trying to regulate it as a telephone company, but it works over the internet.

Ah the old political games we play.

Beat the rush, hate Bush now!

Damn Communists

[LinuxWhore]

You may hate the state tax systems, but you have a hell of lot more control over it. In fact, that is the whole point behind state's rights. Unfortunately, we had a war-time crisis decades ago that required a federal income that that was intended to be temporary, but of course, became a permanent staple of our already overpowering federal government.

But then again, what would you know about American history when all you base you beliefs upon is a failed Communist Manifesto.

What about the Children!?!?

[JesusHelper]

I can't believe this, what a dissapointment. How are all these children who are getting left behind supposed to get a good education if taxes are not taken from selfish consumers?
I know a certain elementary school that has to share computers. There are, say, 5 computers for 20 kids. How would you feel at work if your boss told you, "Hey, Cmdr Burrito, you are going to have to share this pc with charlie here." Not to mention the fact that these machines, which dumb down our kids by weening them on the win-doze inyourface, are, at best Pentium 3s. No wonder our kids are so damn stupid.
That's just the tip of the old iceberg people. without these taxes, we will not be able to afford any tax cuts. So kiss those goodbye. And don't forget perscription psycho-active drugs for your kids. Who is supposed to pay for that? Without tax revenue from the internet I will have to go back to beating my kids when I find him using Kazaa on my computer! Imagine that, not taxing the internet actually causing the physical injury to our children.
Fine, fine, if you selfish bastards want a nation of uneducated, unmedicated, bruised and soar-assed kids then be that way. As for me, I am going to pay these taxes anyway. That's right, I will just send a check at the end of every month, (anonymously of course) to the government. I will not be a part of the problem.

Email Tax??? Pleasssseee . . .

[subjectstorm]

It's not a big deal that congress is attempting to pass this law. The federal government is never at a loss for new things to tax. internet specific taxation would generally not be welcomed publicly, and our economy could use an e-commerce related boost besides. all that aside . . . The idea of an email tax - i'm sorry, the idea may be intriguing? Question Mark? but it's completely worthless. trying to keep up with who sent an email and when over the ENTIRE INTERNET and then figure out their geographic location would require such massive resources that goverment officials would spend more money enforcing the tax than they would make from collecting it. The tax billing errors would be ridiculous. this is to say nothing of mass-mailing worms that hijack your email account, or spoofing. i pity the poor company whose hijacked Exchange server racks up a few hundred thousand dollars in worm-spawned mail activity. >. give the email tax a rest, mnk? not happening.

Bush & Congress deficit.

[Shivetya]

Realize that it takes two to tango. The big spending Democrats are probably secretly happy with Bush. He doesn't seem to veto any spending bill.

As for the deficit, amazing how tax cuts contribute to it but increased spending doesn't? The key to the deficit is to take it into perspective of its percentage of the GNP. At this time even this high dollar deficit is not the largest, and that margin of difference is pretty high.

What one cannot tax one can still slap fees and other sundry items upon to make up for it. In other words, what you don't pay for in tax directly they will get from you indirectly.

Tell me this, which is more desirable, paying taxes on what you use or paying taxes for what other people are using? Guess which one you are choosing when you support this ban.

Re:Bush & Congress deficit.

[GlassHeart]

Tell me this, which is more desirable, paying taxes on what you use or paying taxes for what other people are using?

There is certainly great truth in this statement, but it cannot be taken to the extreme. Education, for example, is not something many families can afford to pay for on an as-needed basis. The society (including adults with no children) essentially chips in to send most or every child through some minimal required schooling. Firefighter or police services are similarly quite expensive (especially when they are effective) for only the users to pay for. I cannot imagine a society where your principle is taken to its logical conclusion holding together.

Put another way, yours is not a sound principle, because it cannot be effectively applied to every situation. The better question is where to draw the line between things everybody should chip in for, and things only users should pay for. Above what is "desirable" you must consider what is "responsible".

Re:States Rights-Washington

[Casshan-Robot Hunter]

Actually, Washington is even more nuts than that.
Washington also has what they call a 'use' tax. (I used to live there and found out about it by accident when I got my driver's license)

Basically it states that if I buy something from you, like a car or atv, I am supposed to get a form and pay taxes on the transaction. That's right, on a non-first sale transaction between two private parties, Washington state has a tax. Of course, there is no enforecement whatsoever of this tax, but the forms are still around, and it is still on the books. How wacked is that?

This will never get signed by Bush

[beef3k]

Uhm, lets see.. "Dubya dubya..." Errr.. can I have another copy of this please?

Re:Problem

[geekoid]

how do you determine a cap?

Is it a hard figure? a percentage of the value of whom your suing?

How can we make sure that acap is high enough so companies will take measurs to fix problems?
If a company sell a product that makes them 100 million a year, but kills 3 people a year, would they spend money to fix it if the cap was 100,000 dollars a million dollars?

There are more issues then "Suing just to get money."

Also, most lawsuits get a apealed several times, until the amount is more reasonable for the harm.
So in that respect, they do self cap.

Email Tax

[MacGod]

DISCLAIMER: I am not trying to be flamebait here, this is my honest opinion:

I'm torn about the idea of an email tax. While in general I don't like the idea too much, it does occur to me that this might be the only way of dramatically reducing spam.

Look at it this way: Even a wicked-busy web maven likely sends less than 1000 emails a day outside of their own company LAN (with a few exceptions I realise. Individuals likely send less than 100 per day in general.

So, say you put a tax, to be administered by your ISP on each email, of say 0.1 cents per email. Big Business guy gets charged $1/day, home user $0.10 per day. By no means big money. Johny McSuperSpammer, however, who sends out 10 million emails every day, gets a handly little bill for $1000. Kind of changes the economics of his penis enlarger ads.

Like I say, I'm not a huge fan of paying more, but it does seem like making emails cost per message sent might be the best/easiet/only way to dramatically reduce spam.

Furthermore (ideally), to make up for the cost, you ISP could take $5 per month off your bill, to make up for the extra you're spending to send email. They still make money, because of the tax, the financial hit for you is minimal, but the spammers get hosed.

Re:Email Tax

[squarooticus]

There is a perfectly good technical solution to the spam problem: HashCash. Can you please stop advocating that the government stick its finger up my ass even farther? I mean, if you like that, more power to you, but as for me...

Re:Email Tax

[DeathPenguin]

An interesting proposition, but much of the spam we recieved either originates or is relayed through routers in other nations, not respect US law. So who foots the bill for spam that comes from countries that lie outside US Jurisdiction?

What happens when spam kingpins in America outsource to people in other countries that do not respect US law to take the blame for spamming?

Re:Email Tax

[cr@ckwhore]

... duh.... probably the *worst* way to "fight spam". Want to dramatically reduce spam for yourself? Try a spam filter. They actually work without government intervention. yay.

Re:Greed?

[FroMan]

Question: why does Joe Blow deserve the rich person's money?

I can tell you why the "rich" man deserves his own money, he earned it.

I will assume you have heard the saying, "Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach him to fish and he will eat for a lifetime."

By just giving things to folks we only allow them to remain dependent on the institution of welfare within the government. When the rich man buys his yatch productive people are going to be employed to build that yatch. Buys a multimillion dollar home on lake michigan productive people are employed to make the house. Now lets look at what happens when the government steps in and takes the rich man's money. Non producing people are employed to tax the rich man, that money is used to pay unproductive people in society to eat.

Now, here's the test. Which produces wealth continually and which reduces the amount of wealth in the society?

Let's not forget how things actually happened.

[lysium]

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.

Ah, it seems like you are forgetting the complete and utter destruction of Europe's industrial base during World War II. When 1945 rolled around, one country still had factory after factory manufacturing goods: the United States. One country was able to shift a fully-mobilized workforce from building weapons of war to building consumer goods: the United States. One country managed to use it's wealth to "subsidize" the rebuilding of the industrialized world. Oh, by the way, those subsidies came with crippling billions of interest. We have been profiting from this imbalance for your "50 years", and now, like Microsoft, are going to have to relearn the meaning of competition.

To all the parents out there: Isn't it just delightfully amusing when your children decide that they are more grown up than you, and "know better?"

========

Re:Let's not forget how things actually happened.

[eatdave13]

Well, when the parents are drunken losers that let the neighbors walk all over them and get into fights over who's better than who and can't even manage to shave their armpits or brush their teeth, are the children wrong?

Re:Let's not forget how things actually happened.

[lysium]

Gee, you must be in the Midwest. Or the South. Because you obviously have never met someone from outside America (i.e. what you and your yokel friends call The World). Get some culture, Arkie.

==========

Re:Let's not forget how things actually happened.

[eatdave13]

I'm not sure why I'm amazed, being that this is Slashdot and all, but you've managed to be wrong on every single thing you've said.

Congrats!

Re:Let's not forget how things actually happened.

[lysium]

Oh, so you are just an ignorant bigot. My bad.

You might like it down there, though. You should consider moving.

=======

Re:Let's not forget how things actually happened.

[eatdave13]

No, I'm an informed observer who witnessed what I'm talking about instead of being a bleeding-heart that gives liberals a bad name.

You should look up the definition of the word bigot, I don't think you know what it means.

What this really means...

[deblau]

(if the bill passes the Senate and gets signed into law) is that no state may tax you for Internet access. This bill basically says that such a tax would be financially discriminatory, since apparently a tax on access would deprive some Americans of the ability to use a common communications medium. I guess the 'Net has finally hit the mainstream.

What this bill isn't, is a moratorium on taxation of Internet services (such as long distance/VoIP, catalog/retail shopping, web hosting, etc). The House have only said that no state may tax access to these services.

No taxes

[phorm]

But ISP's could still level special "surcharges" on excessive emails, etc etc that would have the same effect, much in the way you are already charged for exceeding your bandwidth quota.

In the end, would it really be a bad thing? A surcharge on emails over amount XYZ, unless you registered for a special mass-email account (for listserves) and signed a non-spamming declaration.

Re:Problem

[goldspider]

"Oh and maybe we could have used that nice $87 billion bucks to give healthcare to all Americans..."

If only you had a clue...

Two years ago, the federal budget for public education alone was close to $800 Billion. And you suggest that we could set up a fully-functional healthcare system on $87 Billion? Christ, I'd rather live in Canada and wait 8 months for treatment!

Your entire post is written like a true frothing, socialist, left-wing, Bush-hating zealot. At least you people are consistent, if grossly ignorant...

Re:Keystrokes

[7759-60784-1-E]

> But then, maybe they should just tax pr0n.
> By the inch?

Man, you give 'em an inch, they take a mile, don't they?

Re:Greed?

[hellfire]

1) Does the rich man deserve that money? When you look at it from a capitalist perspective, absolutely. The market valued his services at a certain amount and the market determined thats how much he should get for them. Great. However, from a sociological and humanist standpoint, are you saying that Joe Blow doesn't deserve food and water? The rich guy could work 20hrs a week and make millions as a cosmetic surgeon for media stars, and the poor guy could work 80 hrs a week as a cook making food for other people still not make enough money to feed his children. Who's more deserving?

2) You are also assuming that the government simply gives the money away, and it doesn't. Many people who receive aid are already working. Many people who receive aid are in programs to put them back to work. And you are also blind to Welfare reforms "dirty little secret." Many people on welfare are not on welfare to exploit the system. Those on welfare not going back to work are quite often not able to go back to work. There are many situations of single mothers who simply cannot go back to work because they have family to raise. Child Care is astronomical, all in the name of being a "productive." I saw a story once of a mother who's child was physically and mental a vegatable and was on welfare because her child needed 24/7 care. Under welfare reform rules in the 90s, she'd have to go back to work and find a care specialist to care for her child. How exactly is that an increase in efficiency and productivity? And why isn't raising and caring for children considered productive?

3) Obviously people need a certain level of incentive to work, A rich man buys a yacht, but who got paid off by that sale? The yacht salesman, who is also rich, or the people who constructed it, who could have possibly been paid minimum wage and can't support a family or even themselves? How about the rich media stars who pay illegal immigrants less than minimum wage to work for them?

And what about rich people who inherited money and are not personally productive. They are allowed to buy and buy and buy things but you aren't allowed to give money to poor people to buy things either? How is that humanistically different? Two different people who don't work, who didn't work for their money and just buy things?

4) The answer? Wealthy people who hoard their money. Taxes DO NOT reduce the amount of wealth in society!!!! Thats a fallacy of the worst kind. Taxes take money from the society and redistribute it. What about the people who then get the money on welfare and then buy things with that? Someone had to work to make the things that welfare recipient bought. And what about the government workers employed by this money to make sure people get it? The same argument can be made for the government creating jobs as well. The idea of taxing everyone equally comes from a capitalistic perspective that assumes a lot of things are equal. This is why we have "low cost housing" because the price of housing has gone up, but people who work at McDonalds can't afford the payments of a market price house because those payments are they same whether or not they are rich or poor. Things in the US are expensive, and the poor can't afford them.

And here are points I'd like to add:

Capitalism is about providing people what they want, Democracy is about providing them what they NEED.

Society needs to look out for more than how wealthy it is. It needs to make sure that wealth does not get overbalanced in the hands of a few people and it needs to provide for its citizens. It needs to balance the ideas of a free market with the idea of social welfare. If the poor continue to be poor and have no way to gain wealth within the law, they will have no choice but to try to gain wealth OUTSIDE the law. Crime will be the choice of those people.

Now, considering all of the arguments we've made here, a lot of them are absolute. Your arguments assume that the rich people in this scenario are the good guys

Re:Hmm

[goldspider]

Hou're goddamned right I don't like public schools; not how they're run/funded now, anyway.

Public schools have never lacked for funding. The 2001-2002 federal budget called for spending nearly $800 Billion on it, and that figure goes up EVERY year. And that's not even counting local property taxes! If the key to an educated populace is, as liberals proclaim, more and more funding, why are our kids still dumb as rocks?

we have consistently scored lower than most of the developed world, yet education spending keeps going up and up. That tells me (and other free-thinking individuals) that increased educational spending does NOT, in fact, correlate to better student performance.

Here's what public schools need to do to earn my respect:

1. Scrap all their politically correct tripe and start teaching reading, writing, science, math, history, and art again!

2. Stop spending MILLIONS of dollars on sports complexes, swimming pools, and anything else that doesn't contribute to the EDUCATION of the students! It's a SCHOOL! Not a PLAYGROUND!

3. Put the money saved from #2 into computer labs, teacher salaries (goodbye NEA!) and BOOKS!

4. Stop passing kids who peform poorly so that they don't feel bad about themselves. If their grades aren't good enough to move onto the next grade, keep them there until they do.

There's a very good reason why our public education system is failing, and it's not due to a lack of funding; it's because it's doing everything but EDUCATING!

Government == bad

[Chibi Merrow]

I personally believe the Government has no business stepping in to assure anything regarding Internet service... The market will handle itself just fine. If there is a market to sell broadband services somewhere (even if it's rural), someone will eventually pick it up. And if that doesn't happen, and the people living there still want broadband, here's a perfect example of how it can be done.
Seriously, we need the government LESS involved with our day-to-day lives, not more. If you want something done, do it yourself, don't ask the government to take money from me at gunpoint so they can do it for you for more money and a diminished result.

I'M JUST A BILL

[BasharTeg]

Audio Version Available here from School-House-Rock.com

Please mod this up for nostalgia and educational value. You know you watched this as a kid. Represent for the Nintendo generation!

Boy: Whew! You sure gotta climb a lot of steps to get to this Capitol Building here in Washington. But I wonder who that sad little scrap of paper is?

I'm just a bill.
Yes, I'm only a bill.
And I'm sitting here on Capitol Hill.
Well, it's a long, long journey
To the capital city.
It's a long, long wait
While I'm sitting in committee,
But I know I'll be a law some day
At least I hope and pray that I will
But today I am still just a bill.

Boy: Gee, Bill, you certainly have a lot of patience and courage.
Bill: Well, I got this far. When I started I wasn't even a bill, I was just an idea. Some folks back home decided they wanted a law passed, so they called their local Congressman, and said, "You're right, there oughta be a law." Then he sat down and wrote me out and introduced me to Congress. And I became a bill, and I'll remain a bill until they decide to make me a law.

I'm just a bill
Yes I'm only a bill,
And I got as far as Capitol Hill.
Well, now I'm stuck in committee
And I'll sit here and wait
While a few key Congressmen discuss and debate
Whether they should let me be a law.
How I hope and pray that they will,
But today I am still just a bill.

Boy: Listen to those Congressmen arguing! Is all that discussion and debate about you?
Bill: Yeah, I'm one of the lucky ones. Most bills never even get this far. I hope they decide to report on me favorably, otherwise I may die.
Boy: Die?
Bill: Yeah, die in committee. Ooh, but it looks like I'm gonna live! Now I go to the House of Representatives, and they vote on me.
Boy: If they vote yes, what happens?
Bill: Then I go to the Senate and the whole thing starts all over again.
Boy: Oh no!
Bill: Oh yes!

I'm just a bill
Yes, I'm only a bill
And if they vote for me on Capitol Hill
Well, then I'm off to the White House
Where I'll wait in a line
With a lot of other bills
For the president to sign
And if he signs me, then I'll be a law.
How I hope and pray that he will,
But today I am still just a bill.

Boy: You mean even if the Whole Congress says you
should be a law, the president can still say no?
Bill: Yes, that's called a veto. If the president vetoes me, I have to go back to Congress and they vote on me again, and by that time you're so old...
Boy: By that time it's very unlikely that you'll become a law. It's not easy to become a law, is it?
Bill: No!

But how I hope and pray that I will,
But today I am still just a bill.

Congressman: He signed you, Bill!
Now you're a law!
Bill: Oh yes!!!

Let's take a moment to pray for the creator of "School House Rock," Tom Yohe, who recently passed away due to cancer (December 21, 2000). He was truly a brilliant man, and his contribution to this generation's knowledge in many areas cannot be denied. I know he changed my life for the better.

Re:Top 1% pays 10x taxes than the bottom 50%

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

I know that... the top 1% also owns more wealth... If the top 1% DID NOT pay more taxes, I would be shocked, given the massive wealth disparity in USA...

You still didn't answer the original point...

Sivaram Velauthapillai

That wasn't my suggestion...

[cnelzie]

I bet you read through texts written by the founding fathers and take pieces of what they wrote and slap those together to make it seem like they founded this country to worship space aliens or something akin to that...

The statement about Florida was a statement about Florida. It wasn't a statement supporting Federal Government powers over State Governments.

The idea of taxing what Florida was talking about taxing was and still is quite silly.

How would you tax an email from the UK? How would you tax an email from Washington state, if Washington state already has a tax on email? Whose tax takes precedence? Does that email then get taxed per state it routes through?

Could that mean to send an email to Grandma in Florida you could end up spending something like 5 dollars in overall taxes just for it to get to Grandma? (This is assuming that each state between where you are and Florida has an email tax law written loosely enough to attach a tax on all email that routes through the state.)

Now that you bring it up.. If it got to such a point, I believe the Federal Government would have jurisdiction in settling that kind of dispute and their answer would be, it is now a Federal Tax or No Tax. What do you think their answer would be?

Now you can take your State's Rights banner down... I am on your side about State Rights. However, there are important times when the Federal Government trumps the State for good reason. In this case, it is a good reason.

Re:That wasn't my suggestion...

[91degrees]

The idea of taxing what Florida was talking about taxing was and still is quite silly.

Yes, but it's Florida's right to be silly

How would you tax an email from the UK? How would you tax an email from Washington state, if Washington state already has a tax on email? Whose tax takes precedence? Does that email then get taxed per state it routes through?

Depends. Do they tax per email sent, or email received. If they both decide to tax differently then emails in one diretion get taxed twice, and in the other direction, not at all.

Could that mean to send an email to Grandma in Florida you could end up spending something like 5 dollars in overall taxes just for it to get to Grandma? (This is assuming that each state between where you are and Florida has an email tax law written loosely enough to attach a tax on all email that routes through the state.)

In much the same way as you could have to pay $110 in income tax if you earn $100. It could happen, bhut isn't going to because states tend not to levy taxes that people can't pay. However, since there would be no way of enforcing a tax on someone out of state, the most logical thing would be for the state governemnts to tax network providers. Since they charge for use of their networks, it hardly seems unfair that a state government should be allowed to tax a business operating in that state. Since at least 3 businesses are responsible for getting an email from one person to another, why shouldn't they all be taxed?

And here's another zing.

[lysium]

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.

I suppose someone like Mr. Grosso (of the New York Stock Exchange) gets paid $140 million because he is just so damned productive, eh? He must do the job of.....2800 average (fat, lazy) Americans! Amazing!

Oh, wait, I guess criminal coinspiracy is a form of productivity, after all. My bad.

==========

Re:Greed?

[sharkdba]

Capitalism is about providing people what they want...

Isn't that the definition of freedom?


...Democracy is about providing them what they NEED.

Ah, but you're assuming there is a higher body who will fulfill my needs. And who is to decide what you and I need? The government???

It's like the analogy with a wild and domestic animal: a wild animal lives in a dangerous environment, never know if he'll find food, depends on his survivor skills. But he's FREE to create the environment that fits him.
The domestic animal is kept warm and dry, never hungry, but totally dependent on his owner (human being). Now this if the owner takes care of him. If the owner is neglective and/or abusive... different story

There are risks associated with freedom, you know...

Don't know about you, I prefer to be free and take care of myself, than to have someone else "taking care" of me.

Re:Problem

[I(rispee_I(reme]

Because simply not committing malpractice is not an option...

Re:Greed?

[hellfire]

Isn't that the definition of freedom?

No thats the definition of Anarchy.

There is a higher body who will fulfill your needs. I assume since you have an internet connection that you are part of a developed nation. People are constantly watching over you, its called your government. Your government provides a police force and military to make sure people don't take by force what you don't already own, and they provide laws to tell other people what they can and can't do so you aren't taken advantage of.

Your analogy again is like anarchy. In a wild setting, there's nothing to depend on except you. And if another predator comes along and steals your lunch and kills you (or maybe just stop sending you electricity and come to your house demanding double pay this month just because they can), well then your done, you can't stop it. However, in the US we'd like to think we teach each other that theft and murder are bad. You need a system of law and order to enforce that or it will never hold up.

Yes there are risks associated with Freedom... and freedom reuires responsibility, but no one is going to be responsible for anyone else unless a powerful entity stands up and tells you to be responsible.

Oh and by the way... what you NEED is what everyone else NEEDS... food, clothing, shelter, health care, maybe transportation, and a source of income to sustain that. No sane government decides that you NEED a $5000 television. My only assumption is you think the government will suddenly turn communist and tell you that you don't need this TV. Its obvious you don't need a TV, but it is what you want, and I agree a government shouldn't regulate yoour purchase of luxury goods in that manner and tell you that you should never buy it because its not a need. But it sounds like your response is implying that a social welfare safety net is about telling everyone in the society what to buy and what not to buy and live in a planned, controlled economy. Far from it. Its just an attempt to provide for those with all the amenities the rest of us are able to afford. Everyone else who can afford it can go on with your life.

Some phone bill charges aren't really taxes

[LSD-25]

There are items on your telephone bill that look like taxes, but aren't. According to this article from Consumer Reports:

Such fees are not necessarily standard. Take the Universal Service Fee, a 7.2 percent federal levy imposed to help subsidize phone service for rural communities, low-income citizens, schools, and hospitals. All four major carriers charged more than than 7.2 percent for that fee. Such discrepancies arise from variations in the way companies apply the fee. Until recently, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has said that it has no authority to intervene if companies collect more than they need, but now the agency is considering a proposal to do just that.

Other charges look like they are government-mandated but aren't. Sprint, for example, uses a separate billing line for for property taxes it pays.

Re:Some phone bill charges aren't really taxes

[Jhon]

There are items on your telephone bill that look like taxes, but aren't.

And some of the items that look like taxes REALLY ARE. It's a tax.

The sad thing about this is WHY.

[Machina70]

I think this may be the first chain-spam-urban legend inspired peice of legislation.

Since the govt. has never considered taxing the internet, why the creation of a law with no support?

Well... no REAL support, but there are the 1000's of emails sent to lawmakers monthly asking that they not vote for a fictional internet tax bill proposed by a fictional senator.

The question is, do they truely think people just spontaneaously support a tax-free internet, or is this merely a ploy to get the reality-challenged to stop emailing them everyday?

Either way, it's funny as heck. :D

Re:Top 1% pays 10x taxes than the bottom 50%

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

:) His info is correct though... I'm sure the top 1% pay more in taxes than the bottom. Bill Gates probably pays more in taxes than all the slashdotters combined...

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Re:How could they legally tax those products anywa

[Reteo Varala]

In the state of Ohio, there is a funky little thing known as the "Use Tax," where you pay tax, at tax time, for anything you've purchased out-of-state.

Good thing I'm out of that state now! :)

How would that affect trade with Europe?

[Snaller]

The wonderfull European Union has added tax on internet services (even things like Everquest) - if you buy something from the US via the Internet, it is thought to be the duty if the seller to account for the tax - but if this becomes illegal in the US.. what then?

Re:Problem

[bryanp]

Because simply not committing malpractice is not an option...

Actually it's not, I'm sad to say. There are things that go wrong in medicine (like anything else) that are simply unavoidable or unforseeable. Unfortunately these days nobody is willing to admit that and if anything goes wrong they sue because obviously it must be the Dr's fault. A lot of OB/GYN's are dropping the OB part of their practice because it's just too expensive to cover the cost of liability. "Junior was born with a problem! I'll sue!"

(no, I'm not a Doctor, but my wife is an RN, my mother-in-law is a respiratory therapist and a close friend is an anaesthesiologist so I get to hear about this stuff)

Balkans

[qtp]

You do realize that most of the Balkans were nothing like the rest of Europe (they were struggling countries after the collapse of Communism).

The Balkans were struggling countries before the rise of Communism.

The perpetual problem that the Balkans face is the same as the one that allowed Bush to push our nation into war with very little evidence (and even that "evidence" was falsified).

Rampant nationalism can be counted on by the rich and the powerful to bring the masses in line whenever desired. Either fake an attack from a foriegn power or terrorist group, or help them to commit it by ignoring intelligence reports, and the population falls in line to support any tyrant, willingly gives up thier civil liberties (if they have them to begin with), accepts rediculous arguments in favor of the current administration, and begins to both believe every lie that the establishment media feeds them while at the same time blasting that same media as being "dangerously liberal".

Re:A good move

[Hittite Creosote]

Those taxes aren't sneaked in. Those taxes are raised with the full understanding of the Scandinavian voters, who are more interested in getting good public services than they are in low taxes.

However, there are plenty of political parties outside of Scandinavia that compete with each other in 'we lowered taxes!' while actually sneaking them in again in some other way.