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Ban on Internet Access Tax Dies in Senate
Justen writes "The Associated Press is reporting (via Yahoo! News) that the bill to permanently ban federal and state taxes on the Internet, via the Internet Tax Freedom Act, has died in the Senate. 'The problem arose over the definition of 'Internet access' -- services that connect consumers to the Internet. The strongest proponents for a permanent ban want to make sure that all access technologies -- from phone lines to DSL to cable modems -- get equal freedom from taxation.'"
Well, these are taxes that we are talking about here. The only difference between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to taxes is that the Democrats are a bit more public about liking to tax people. They use those funds to support "public services". Yet, both parties use taxes to fund many secret projects that cost Americans countless amounts of money, but most of those you don't hear about on the news. Anyways, that's besides the point. The fact that a bill like this came from the two party system is a shock enough to me.
Sure, the Act probably was just created to make it look like the folks on Capitol Hill were staying busy. Hell, I've watched SPAN at random and I saw an extremely long debate about how Roberto Clemente should be honored when they should be working. But, doesn't it just piss you off how, even if this was a broad-based ban (and I don't mean broad = woman), that they would still fight over it? Good God, they just won't leave anything alone. It wouldn't fucking kill them to keep taxes away from the internet, period!
This just goes to show you that Congress has a raging boner to tax you, and it's not one that is going to go down anytime soon.
Until Slashdot fixes the funny modifier, use insightful or interesting. The poster knows your intentions.
Indeed, and wouldn't it be irresponsible (and outside of their mandate really) for a temporarily elected group to attempt to pass a permanent ban? At most they can pass a four year ban and let the next batch decide when their turn comes around.
I like the whole "no taxes" thing, and it could continue to happen if the internet were a technology showcase used by a couple of people, however as the internet becomes (became) an integral part of our lives, and a key point of purchase for a massive value of goods and services, exempting it while continuing to tax other streams (like local retailers) is fiscally imprudent, not to mention unfair. This is the sort of policy that sounds good in theory (I mean who wants to pay taxes?), but it just doesn't work efficiently or fairly when taxes do need to be raised.
Without those taxes, poor Principal S. would make only $100,000/year instead of the $147,000/year he has become accustomed to.
Without those taxes, the high school football team might not be able to afford new lockers this year, instead waiting until next year.
Without those taxes, Echelon/Carnivore might have been made by Microsoft, and be less efficient in their violations of our right to protection from unreasonable search and seizure.
Without those taxes, Iraq might not get the money Bush wants to give it, and every last one of us would have $300 left in our pockets not taken as taxes.
I'd love to see the government cut back to a mandatory 5% tax for the state and 5% tax for the nation on all income, with absolutely no taxes on anything else. Maybe then they'd stop trying to tax every last thing.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
This isn't to advocate taxing the Internet, but it strikes me as completely arbitrary to completely ban taxing the Internet and not, say, ban taxing the telephone system (which is arguably more important to its users - there are more landline users than Internet users, and I suspect we're close to a point that there are more cellphone users than landline users in the US - that situation is already true in most of the rest of the world, developed and undeveloped.) If such bans are going into place, they need to cover more than a specific globally accessable TCP/IP network.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Would this bill read a lot better if things like commerce and minor were define in some official library of congress dictionary?
It seems like they are saying that for three years, no tax authority can impose additional tax on providing network access or commerce on networks. But there are so many words, I'm not sure.
One more thing, Since every legal seller and every legal buyer has an address, why shouldn't the half the value of the transaction be taxed as if the sale occurred at the sellers address and half at the buyers address?
I mean, I am correct in assuming the ground telephone system is starting to die. It'll take a long time, but there just isn't as much use as a cable line, which can easily handle telephones and whatever else you throw at it. It parallels the situation of getting rid of the big polluters: it's worse for everyone, but they have friends to keep things how they are.
Although I can't explain it in detail, I can give you some problems that the folks in Washington haven't solved.
So you want to tax internet transactions and allow states to do the same? Which state gets the revenue, the state of the receiver or sender? It the transaction is routed through a node in Colorado, does Colorado get a cut? If you are taxing the sender and they operate in a high-tax state, what happens if they move their server to a low tax state?
Why isn't this an incentive to move MORE technology jobs overseas? After all if internet activity is being taxed in the US, put your servers in Burma and hire a Burmese staff to administer them....viola!
The problem is that nobody has figured out how to reconcile the provincial nature of local taxation with the nebulous, location-less, nature of the internet. The ban on internet taxes was an acknowledgment of this fact and an attempt to prevent state and local governments from screwing everything up by enacting a menagerie of little taxes. The problems are still unsolved.
Except that Congress does have the right to regulate interstate commerce under the Constitution. From Article 1, Section 8;
Congress shall have the power... To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes
You'll note that the internet is only "tax free" when you're not dealing with a vendor in the same state as you. So Congress does have the Constitutional authority to ban internet tax, and this power has been with the Congress since the nation was founded.
common sense: noun
What those who are ignorant of the subject matter think; usually wrong.
Next thing you know the RIAA will ask for its own tax to recoup the supposed costs of piracy. They can then try to make WIFI networks impossible due to complicated tax regulations. Soon the government will have to monitor internet routers to properly access taxes, etc.