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States Fight Internet Tax Ban, Cite VoIP Concern
PetiePooo writes "From an article at PCWorld: The Multistate Tax Commission is fighting a bill which makes the moratorium on internet taxes permanent. Their complaint is that it could be interpreted to include VoIP telephony such as Packet8 and Vonage, and they would lose that lucrative tax base as people switch from incumbent providers. The House has already approved the bill. When will the politicians figure out that VoIP is a going to end up as a product, not a service? Voice will be just another form of data. Here's another related article."
Change the tax system.
Change it so that the companies providing the physical links are the ones that pay the tax.
This will solve all the issues with VOIP
When will the politicians figure out that VoIP is a going to end up as a product, not a service?
When will people in general figure out that data transfer is going to end up as a service, not a product?
Now then, bring on the bashing...
.: Max Romantschuk
...but so is a regular telephone line. sure, it's analog "data," as opposed to digital for VOIP. If we follow that argument, then we shouldn't have to pay for telephone usage, either.
So the only thing that sets them apart is being analog or digital? I think if it is used for communication, they are going to see it as a threat.
A blog like any other.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
When our (the US) government isn't backed by the money of the lobbyers that want to manipulate and again, is backed by the common voice of the people.
--
"I'm not bright. Big words confuse me. But Wanda loves me and that should be enough for you." - Cosmo
VoIP is hardly the problem in this case - I think the main problem is that the states are so incredibly strapped for cash after Bush' gross mismanagement that they are basically are on the path to bankrupcy...
Hence, they would do anything for some extra cash, rather than realising that "yes, VoIP would be quite cool, and people should pay just as little tax on it as they do on the Internet itself"
The Mini Repository - more links
All of their life, Politicians spent time with a profession, most of them are old enough that their interests early on in life were something else but technology. It would seem like since it's their job to supposedly help out the people and businesses by passing fair laws, that they would have more intelligence on how technology works. In this case, all they see it as, is a revenue income for companies that may try to sell that service as a form of package, and will want to collect a bit more coin from it.
new technology developments allow getting for less something that people was forced to pay much more in the past.
What would happen (warning: tinfoil-hat example here) if somebody discovered a way to produce cheap energy or a way to transmit data at long distances without using radio waves?
Would the rulers push the use of these technologies by anyone, or rather immediately find a way to tax whatever material/media/principle thay're based on after being lobbied (bought) by the already estabilished industries?
Of course it has nothing to do with state legislatures and governors spending money like a drunken sailor in a whore house when tax receipts were temporarily boosted by a booming economy and soaring stock market. The jerks in my state spent every dime that came in to the state treasury, with no consideration for what was going to happen when the bubble burst. As far as they were concerned, it was "free money", and they wasted no time in thinking up new ways to spend it.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
when will people realize that the concept of money does not fit to non-material digitally communicating world?
with the interexchangable information who has done what, the money has lost it's meaning. it have become just an object (to worship), not anymore information in form of coins/bills/whatever showing how much somebody has produced for others (society).
Not bilking your citizens of their money does not constitute a "cost" or "loss" on your part.
Utilities such as telephones are taxed by several levels of government, not just the states. The shift of the telephone service to a permanently untaxable form will have a corresponding multi-level effect. Here in Fairfax County, VA we really get soaked - 22% levied against local service - see Fairfax County Tax Rates for details.
Take the bigger picture. This matter is really one of revenue shaping. It takes so many dollars to run the governments (that we hope are acting for the common good). They can get tax revenue from many places. The government sets various tax levels on different goods and services, and by so doing decides which industries and activities it wishes to encourage by giving them a break. This principle is applied at all levels of government. Losing the telephone tax base is not the end of the world - governments will increase the revenue stream elsewhere. Income, personal property, and real estate are perennial favorites here in the US.
That said, Congress should think carefully before reducing the choices that subordinate government levels have.
English -- gotta love it! / The engineers refuse to refuse the rocket until the refuse is removed from the launch pad.
will they tax the online time or data that is transmitted. and will i get a refund for unwanted data (like spam) or what? and what if you get you data from another country? or another countryman gets data from you? how come that you should pay for something that is wanted by another guy in a country that doesn't tax data? do i also have to pay for the data sent by a malicious worm?
questions over question...
".Sig Stealer" was here
When was the last time you carried a box of VoIP out of a store or had it shipped by UPS... seems more like a service to me...
How many of your democrats thought you would be agreeing with a republican today?
basicly, a VOIP phone (e.g. vonage) looks just like any other phone and you can use it just like any other pone. Therefore, in the eyes of the states, its a telephone and should be taxed as such.
VoIP will be taxed when the telephone companies figure out that politicians are both a service and a product...
Nobody's talking about installing a service-detecting tax machine at ISPs to detect VoIP connections and tax them, so let's lose the "It's just another form of data" claims right here. What they're talking about taxing VoIP that replaces phone service, which is really a phone service that's delivered over VoIP rather than a standard POTS twisted pair.
It's still phone service. Phone service that's delivered over airwaves, and often is digital these days, is called cellular and that's been taxed since the day it started. Why does VoIP's phone service deserve an exemption?
On my phone bill, I pay almost 30% to fees and taxes. On VOIP, will they try to add FCC and associated infrastructure charges when the infrastructure is now irrelevant? I can understand paying a 911 tax (somewhat) but paying a charge that is supposed to cover the cost of the wires seems a bit ridiculous. I can't see them letting go of this money, both in taxes and in fees.
I think that there should be a tax imposed on people/corporations who file civil lawsuits and lose them. This would not apply to everyone who lost a lawsuit, only to those who initiated the suit and subsequently lost. If someone sued you and won, you would not be taxed, and neither would they.
:)
For example, suppose that SCO sues IBM, and SCO loses. SCO should then have to pay a tax to the government for having wasted taxpayer money by tying up the judicial system with a suit which was found to be without merit. After all, assuming such suit makes it to trial, we (the taxpayers) are the ones footing the bill for the judge, the jury duty pay, the court reporters' salary, the cost of operating the court facilities during the trial, etc.
This would kill two birds with one stone:
a) Cut out a lot of bullshit frivolous lawsuits
b) Make the government a bit of bank on those who went ahead with said bullshit frivolous lawsuits
Who's with me? Vote Motherfucking Shit in 2004...
"BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
Then, when next tax bill season comes round, they'll feel like adding an "insignificant" 0.05% to it. Then .38% then... in about 5 years, it will be more than users can pay for it ( an economic Peter Principle ). Then, they'll make it a "per use" tax.
The banks that get a fee on tax transfers, of course, will think it's "business as usual". And will cackle with their usual hideous glee.
Not a good idea.
When was the last time you carried a box of VoIP out of a store or had it shipped by UPS... seems more like a service to me...
Nope.
Your ISP provides a service (internet connectivity).
VoIP is nothing more than the VoIP phone that you carry out of the store that enables you to use it for voice.
What you are saying is equivalent to proposing to tax people who buy fax machines or answering machines to get added value out of their (current) phone service, because "fax is a service" and "automated call answering" is a service.
Believing that giving more money to the government will reduce deficits is like believing that buying an alcoholic another drink will slake his thirst.
The only real way to solve this problem is to put measureable, non-revokable penalties on government officials who overspend - for example, by saying that Congress shall not be paid, nor accrue retirement benefits, during any year in which the government runs a deficit (and a deficit shall be defined simply as "spending more money than you took in", no more funny accounting tricks).
We must be able to run a deficit during times of crisis (think World War II), but there needs to be a strong disincentive to prevent perpetual crisis.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Those packets travel over wires that are already being taxed with the exception of some wireless. The wireless connections are running on their own private gear but have to push it to wire at some point where once again taxes are already being paid.
Got Code?
When you buy your VoIP software product that lets you make the calls... using the data transfer service of the internet
Parent is modded up as funny but surely this is the whole point?
VoIP is a product you can obtain, buy the product from the shop or get an open source version. "Voice will be just another form of data" as the VoIP makes use of the data transfer service that is the internet. It just so happens that the end user cost of the internet service is free at the moment. One day, I expect to see the internet provided like a utility service as we get electricity.
That whole article was predicated on the fact that the internet is in itself not monopolized and thats just crap. Most people who have internet access have little choice in providers and even when they do there is a monopoly phone company who really controls the main access point (the rest of the providers are just resellers of the monoply providers service). Even when the alternate supplier has installed their own DSLAM in the POP (which happens less than you can imagine) its just a different monopolistic player company selling the same thing. It all boils down to the fact that there is a telco mentality out there that truly controls the network (like it or not) and they are in the business of charging you for access the transfer of data.
VOIP is a product??
The product is the device that attaches your phone to the service which is the data conduit. VOIP telephones are products. Thats what consumers walk in to the store and purchase. To the consumer, VOIP is a product, to the telco it is a service, actually part of your normal data service. Where does the ISP make money if all they can do is charge for data transmission? By charging for the establishment of the connection itself. Before you scream bullsh*t, its the IP address that counts, keep in mind that its the ISPs who control the assignment of IP address space (in the last mile), access to the network, and routing of protocols. Ugly but true. No amount of hacking can get you around the ISP just shutting off or screwing with your service so ultimately they do have control over what data gets routed, but since it is so hard for them to market a limited access service they won't win this battle easily. What they can do is charge for the mapping of the connection, and the QOS of that data from point to point.
I know there are a bunch of you thinking BS, there will always be a way around the ISPs trying to control the medium but this just isn't true. You can't just switch ports or switch protocols because that will not work at a global scale for the great unwashed (the hordes that know zip about technology). You can't easily switch to a P2P network as they are not designed for time critical routing of data. You are in fact stuck with the fact that if the world at large wants to get rid of the phone companies monopoly over voice as a data type then the problem becomes very large, not because it is a massive technical problem, its not, its a problem of marketing, usability of the end product by John Q, and the perception and expectations that people have when they pick up a phone. No, VOIP is not a product, it is a product and a service the latter half of which is completely controlled by the ISPs who in their interest will find a way to tax you for that service (one way or another).
internet tax has to be stopped
instead of taxing the internet, lets tax non-profit organizations. (they're all run by corrupted businessmen who reap profits and rob the poor)
Why is it that everyone ELSE has to find new ways to survive in a changing economic world except State and Federal governments? >
I wanted to swap to VoIP years ago but the
powers that be have made it economically infeasible.
If I drop Comcast telephone service and keep Comcast Broadband, the Broadband price nearly goes up 75% the cost of the telephone service (due to their "bundling" prices), so I only save a few dollars which is less then I would save if I swapped to VoIP and purchased a telephone number for incoming calls (as a side note, what it odd about this bundling is that they have not and will not put the telephone and broadband on the same bill -- I still get two bills a month).
OK, then go over to the competition, you say. Well, Verizon will not sell me DSL unless I buy their telephone service and moreover, no one can sell me DSL unless I get Verizon telephone service becuase Verizon owns the lines and will not loan them to third parties for DSL unless I get a telecommuinication service from Verizon to handle the cost of "maintaining the lines" under the 1996 telecommunications act.
So what about SDSL, T1 or leased lines, you say? Not for double to quardruple the price.
Thus, no matter where I go I pretty much *have* to buy telephone service. If it is like this anywhere else the states have nothing to worry about as it will not be economically reasonable to swap to VoIP for residents, at least, and the will get their beloved FCC taxes, which is 37% of the cost of the telephone service itself so they can fund rural health care (what "rural health care" has to do with telephones and the FCC, I have no idea, but a good portion of the FCC line charge go towards that).
that's crap... even phone companies themselves market VoIP as a product. once the infrastructure has been built, it cost very little to maintain. this is basically a means to drive up your cost of living.
Fax service is taxed. I sent a fax at Staples a couple weeks ago, the sign said $1 but the cashier asked me for $1.05. The reciept said 5 cents was tax which is the standard 5% sales tax we have around here.
If I had a fax machine at home, I'd have to pay a 5% tax on the cost of sending and receiving faxes there too. No, I wouldn't have to file a form for every fax that comes in or goes out... but I'd have to pay a 5% sales tax when I buy the machine. I'd then have to pay sales tax on the phone service I plug the machine into, and any tolls I'd be charged while the fax machine is sending. I'd be taxed again when I need to buy more paper and toner too. I'd even even taxed on the power the device consumes when the power bill comes!
I also have to pay taxes on my "automated call answeing" service... I paid a sales tax when I bought a answering machine too, and every time the battery runs out I've gotta pay tax on that too.
Oh, and don't tell me I can avoid taxes by shopping online. I can avoid sales tax that way, but then I incur a use tax of 5% of the purchase price of any goods I import into the state for use here that I didn't already pay 5% worth of sales taxes on. (What, you think I'm going to confess to being a tax cheat by not paying the use tax on things I buy out of state?... not unless I'm posting as an AC!)
If you can do it, the government can find a way to tax it...
Folks,
:-) Rates like this were impossible even ten years ago.
I hate to say this, but VoIP is NOT yet a true replacement for your regular telephone service.
Today's telephone service for long distance calls is incredibly cheap by anyone's standards; look at the cost of long-distance calls in the first half of the 20th Century versus now on an inflation-adjusted basis and you'll note that calling anyone around the world is very cheap. For example, the 10-10-987 service from Telecom*USA allows you to call from the USA to anyone in Canada or Western Europe for an amazingly low rate of US$0.39 connect charge and US$0.03 per minute rate!
Besides, I'm not sure if VoIP is such a good idea; it may not work well for people on dial-up Internet connections, and even if you have a broadband connection you still have to fight Internet latency problems.
How about the companies who paid to BUILD the networks, charge people to USE the networks. Then, the people who want to use VOIP software, will PAY those people who MADE it. Or use free software that some decent person had the heart to give away.
Oh christ, what? That's how things have been going along so smoothly all this time? Well..
Everyone will be happy, and the government can go knock on someone elses door for that "little bit more" that they always seem to need. What will it take for Americans to realize that between the 20-30% they lose right off the top, and the 10-20% more they lose on sales, use, home, and other taxes, that enough is enough? It's sickening.
Unline faxes, VOIP needs lots of things customers can not do for themselves (soft switching, namely). Simply buying a VOIP phone (the product) without Vonage or some similar service makes it IMPOSSIBLE to swith between PSTN (public phone newtork) and the internet. Sure, one POTS dies and EVEYONE on the planet has their own domain name tied to an IPv6 address (nobody can memorize IPv6 addresses) the "service" element will drop off, but as of today, the service element is absolutely critical.
----- Refactoring is the reason why man does not mistake himself for a god.
[ note the small 'l'. ]
I completely agree with what you're saying, Motherfucking. Personal responsibility, adherence to the Constitution, and a "hands-off" stance on social issues are the tenets of modern American libertarianism.
You may want to look into the Libertarian Party. While there are a lot of kooky people involved in the LP, there are a good number of them who are a lot more reasistic, and are trying to convince the American public that endless cycles of tax and spend, and government's regulation of the bedroom are not in their best interest.
Personally, I usually vote LP if the candidate "gets it", as you say, but I'll gladly cross party lines if the candidate has libertarian leanings.
Take a look at the Cato Institute as well.
That's right.
Before when Bill Gates had $50,000,000,000, he was just scraping by. Now with the massive tax cut, he now has $50,000,000,005 and living high on the hog.
To make things worse, next week he'll have $50,000,000,010!
Not only that, but of we follow that quite reasonable logic, then *taxing* VOIP won't be illegal. If they actually read the fine print of the bill, it says that discriminatory taxing of the internet is illegal. Taxing VOIP wouldn't necessarily count, as they already tax phones and they could be rolled up into the same taxing scheme.
Another example of a lot of blustering before any real thinking in Congress.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Of course, I submitted this story A FUCKING WEEK AGO. But the well know MASTURBATER Timothy rejected it. HEY TIMMY! Pull all that COCK out of your mouth!
"Voice will be just another form of data."
Voice is already just another form of data.
Sounds like we have found someone else who has been making money one way and think they have a right to continue their current business model instead of moving with the times.
The lesson is very simple (and obvious) one. As the article you ridicule points out, VOIP (like anything else) does have a price. Besides the quality aspect, you pay the price of losing phone if the power or internet goes down.
Some people are willing to pay that price to save a few bucks, get added features, or just say a big "screw you" to their local telco. So why don't you just pay your added monetary cost, for your added reliability, and those of us who don't care if the phone goes out for a bit (yes, even in an emergency) can save a few bucks. Consumers are free to purchase what they want, shut up and deal with it.
Contact Me (got tired of viruses emailing me).
So let's just screw 'em. We don't need retail telecom/broadband. We're going to soon BE that ourselves.
Wholesale internet access is getting cheaper, and all it takes is enough geeks in a neighborhood who are willing to split costs and devote a little effort, and you can bypass the crappy customer service, perhaps that bucketful of bizarre taxes, and those godawful installers. WiFi for the people, baby!
The more BS like this that government tries to pull, the more the tech-savvy will find ways to end-around this boatload of BS. Maybe then government can keep itself busy trying to screw with the ever-decreasing populace that hasn't suffered enough at the hands Comcast, Cox and the rest.
Visit Seattle. Behold the future.
Its not difficult to prove that we are already taxed on everything.
If you buy your own VoIP equipment, your probably taxed.
Your probably taxed on your bandwidth costs.
Your probably taxed on the electricity you supply your equipment with.
The trick is, not to determine when you are being taxed, instead, count how many times you are being taxed on any given transaction.
Don't forget to include your personal income tax, and payroll taxes.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
How is consumer VoIP not a service? True, if I buy a pair of VoIP boxes and connect them on broadband connections in two branch offices, yeah, that's a product.
Vonage and their competitors are most definitely a SERVICE. They provide the call routing and billing for the individual consumer, as well as act as the VoIP-PSTN gateway.
The product/service article is extremely flawed and misleading. While it is true that the RBOCs and ILECs still price-gouge the consumers to an excessive degree, they still provide a service, not a product.
Should Vonage be taxed? Well, odds are, they probably already are. I would assume that they pay tax on their own incoming trunks at their VoIP-PSTN gateway locations, and those are taxed accordingly and the costs passed on to the consumer in the form of their monthly contracts.
The decision to tax a service over a service (consumer VoIP over an ISP conneciton) is the contention here.
Strangely, Colorado, which has a taxpayer bill of rights, isn't running a deficit. Life hasn't ended here. The pressure of the national economic situation has forced hard thinking and reasonable budget cuts where necessary. As it should, IMO.
I'm not opposed to all deficits - if you were never willing to run a deficit, you'd never snap the ball in a football game for fear of losing field position. If you make a habit of losing fifteen yards gambling on end-arounds, though, you'll lose your job. [Shrug]
Bush will be judged in the long run on the success of his policies in securing the future health of the nation, whether the deficit spending was worthwhile or not. Economically, it is still too soon to judge the effects of his tax cuts. He's basically gambled on results of his belief that it will stimulate the economy becoming evident within the next twelve months. If it doesn't become evident in terms of the job market he will likely lose the election.
IMO his initial tax cuts were well-founded, but extending the concept following 09/11 when it is known that we're taking an economic hit and will need to spend more money on various national security issues is a tremendous gamble. He firmly believes that lower taxes are a necessity for a stronger economy, but he needs to take the pain as well in terms of spending sacrifices, even if unpopular. (Obviously not popular if the states are whining for funding.)
You can't have it all in a poor economic time. You can't generate money in a poor economic time by increasing taxes. OTOH the poor economic time seems to be slowly passing, and it's worse economic times for the middle/lower class than for those with enough means to use the market. It's this difference that gives justification to arguments against across-the-board tax cuts. Bush is depending upon those with means benefiting from the tax cuts investing in ways that improve the job market for the masses. If they're overly reluctant and leave job-seekers and the underemployed in a bad spot for about twelve more months, they'll lose their tax cuts. Something they should think about...
All in all the voice quality of packet8 is good. Sometimes you get an echo and sometimes you get mushed vocals, but it's better quality than my cell phone.
We averaged $80/month for phone, voicemail, call waiting, caller ID, long distance. Our bill was $120 normally with the $40/month DSL charge. We now pay $50/month for wireless, and $19.95/month for phone, voicemail, caller ID, long distance.
So we save $50/month. Now, I admit, the steep setup is a drawback. For me it wasn't an issue since work paid for it. But about 3 months after I had the access a new wireless ISP knocked on my door and their service was comparable, but no setup fee if you signed 2 year deal.
Now all we need is REAL broadband, starting at 2MBPS/2MBPS for $20/month. To get that the backbone providers need to stop rate fixing.
My Linux Command of the Day site : LCOD
You always have enough fire insurance before the fire.
Sure, it's easy enough now to say that you don't care if your phone dies in an emergency, if it means you've saved a few bucks.
But try explaining that to your wife or kid when they need an ambulance.
Actually, this was true for the luddites too. Here's
/ 00 09/msg00033.html
an old rant from nanog on this:
http://www.cctec.com/maillists/nanog/historical
I actually think the open source and anti-spam
communities have a lot more in common with the
luddites than they're given credit for--fighting
against ridiculous forms of ownership in the face of harsh
penalties (sound familiar?)
We could get rid of all all this tax bickering with a taxation plan that's been discussed for years but never taken seriously. Outlaw all taxes except sales tax. The federal government would impose a national sales tax on consumer purchases only, and would disburse an annual refund equal to the tax rate times whatever they say is the poverty level. ALL OTHER TAXES would be eliminated.
The flat refund is there to make the sales tax non-regressive, that is, to avoid disproportionally taxing the poor. To meet the federal budget the tax would have to be about 20%. If the federal govt defined poverty level income as $15,000/year, then everybody would get a $3000 refund, which means poor people get all their sales tax back, richer people get back only a fraction. It's a self-graduating tax scale using only 2 numbers, numbers not hidden in a forest of deductions, exemptions and loopholes.
Cash registers would tell you what your tax is every time you buy something. States would collect sales tax from retailers as they do now, and would turn over the feds' share. The IRS would shrink to a small office with only enough employees to deal with their counterparts in 50 states, rather than with 12 million businesses and over 100 million taxpayers. The maze of business taxes currently built into the price of everything would go away. There would be no income declaration forms, no 4000-page IRS code, no 105,000 IRS employees, no tax accountants, tax consultants, tax lawyers, tax lobbyists, etc. All of that mess would go away. Congress would have only 2 numbers to manipulate, and they would have to do it right out in the open.
Grab stats from your router every night and calculate bits sent/received and multiply by the cost per bit.
I mean...really....
Blar.
The traditional phone companies have the infrastructure, so VOIP means you are paying them anyway.
Yes, the tax structure needs to change.. however..
The whole idea of regional and local phone calls is going to change... it's an artifact of the old phone system. The phone numbering plan will change, everything will change... VOIP is just the first step in getting away from that, as it provides ineroperability with the old phone system.
We will have to get past the laws and antiquated rules regarding the absolute waste of resources the POTS system is, start a NEW system of data to every home and location, and a way to charge for it (or otherwise maintian it), and let voice service become just another data service with certain QoS constraints (in this case, low jitter)
"What you are saying is equivalent to proposing to tax people who buy fax machines or answering machines to get added value out of their (current) phone service, because "fax is a service" and "automated call answering" is a service."
Peoplewith a dedicated fax line pay the same taxes as people paying for a voice line. When you use VoIP, you're still connecting to phones using the normal switching network, and therefore, are liable for the taxes on that network. It's only fair.
Only the government can make it so, technology will progress to making data transer achievable by meshed networks build almost entirely from end user owned nodes.
Bandwith is cheap and will get free if the government doesnt step in.
Anything that pissed off the Multistate Confiscation Committee is a good thing.
That government is best which governs least, and all that.
To mangle a saying: The Internet interprets [busybody, avaricious, carpetbagging, presumptuous huckster bastards] as damage, and at least tries to route around them.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
911 funding fee 0.50
Dual party relay 0.11
Interstate access charge 6.50
Federal excise tax 0.85
State telcom sales tax 1.6
Federal Universl Service Fee 0.60
Svc Provider Number Portablility Fee 0.36
Universal Connectivity Charge 2.66
Bill Statement Fee 1.50
Federal Tax 0.80
State and local tax 1.61
Regulatory assessment fee 0.99
TOTAL TAX 18.11
So I figured at the total take from Verizon only lines at 18.11 my tax * 12 months * 135,000,000 customers = 29,338,200,000 Rounding it off to the even Billion for 30 Billion dollars a year in Tax. [daveblackonline.com]
Nuff Said.
"flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap... Shut the fucking door mom! flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap flap.."
What Vonage is selling isn't VoIP but rather the VoIP - POTS bridging ability, and even that part could be productized via an off-the-shelf home VoIP-to-phone bridge.
Naturally any VoIP call that terminates onto the PSTN is going to incur phone taxes, but if it terminates to another VoIP phone without ever having left the data network then it's free as long as internet bandwith remains tax free. Let's hope it does.
The smart phone companies will embrace VoIP and sell VoIP enabling and enhancing products rather than trying to fight it in the courts.
Right now, the state governments are desperate to make up for their loss of revenue due to their tendency to spend like drunken sailors and ignore economic indicators. That's really what this is about. As far as allowing new technologies to take root in the marketplace, I don't trust them any more than the Feds. They're crooks who like playing with other people's money.