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Japan Considers Taxing of WiFi
DoktorTomoe writes "According to an article at Asia Pacific Media Network, Japan plans to introduce a fee for using WLan. The changes necessary for such taxation could be made as early as 2005. "
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I hope this doesn't give the US Governement any wild ideas...
DAMN YOU OCTODOG! DAMN YOU TO HELL!
Isn't this a bit moronic? Find things that make economies more efficient and help spread information and tax them? It's not like wireless costs the government anything to allow. Oh yeah, first post.
How can someone but a tax on using Wi-Fi? That would be like putting a tax on the cordless phones, or remote car locks. Stupid, and a cheep way to get some money for the government!
What's the point of a sig?
Hey, when's the oxygen tax coming out? Oh, and I think we should also create a tax for walking anywhere, by counting the steps each person takes and sending them a bill at the end of the month. Could be rolled into the breathing tax, by counting the number of breaths each person takes and adding them together for a Human Life Tax. Or we could just tax Wifi...
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
involves the power to destroy -- Chief Justice John Marshall
Realistically, how do they plan on doing this? A levy on the purchase of Wi-FI hardware, or do they somehow plan to tax the *usage* of the spectrum?
If they use the second option, how do they plan on enforcing this?
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 Whoops, silly middle mouse button...
Are you nuts? You're going to give them ideas!
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Does this mean that the Japanese government is going to take up wardriving to look for violators?
Unknown host pong.
Yet more blatant governmental greed...
At least it will be hard to enforce.
Taxing of WiFi considered... in Japan!
I can see how they apply a tax to cell phones and other such devices that require an account with a provider, as taxes can be enforced via the normal billing cycle. But how do you tax WiFi? It certainly couldn't be done via the ISP's billing mechanism (right?)...
I'm interested to see how they figure this one out, but I must say...this reminds me of the chainmails of a few years back that claimed the U.S. Government was going to tax email.....
I propose a tax on all those who stand in water!
*looks around*
ooooooogghhh!
Believe me, wifey is taxing enough. That bitch won't stop nagging me.
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
If it's offered commercially.
Wouldn't it already be covered by some tax? If I pay 20 bucks an hour at starbucks (no idea what it costs), isnt there some goods or services tax applied in the US (depending on state?)
Any time money changes hands, the government will make sure they get some. The beatles wrote a song about it and everything, try not to be too shocked.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
A tax on Wifi? What about Hubby?
Best Windows Freeware
All I've seen here so far are people whining about getting taxed on a service.
Have you ever looked at your home cable internet bill, flipped it around to the back and noticed the amount of tax placed on it? Federal Tax, Service Tax, etc etc. A good $4-$5 worth of tax goes to the government because you use cable/dialup internet. This is nothing new, and nothing that we should be surprised about.
"We're breaking out the ramen noodles. . . "
"Really? Is it someone's birthday?"
I for one think this is a good thing!
....humm maybe I posted that comment on the wrong website :( hehe
Boxing Equipment Reviews
I mean, they're going to RF tag school girls, right? Are they then going to turn around and tax them because of this?
;)
Criminals and the government both win!
"An infinite number of monkeys typing into GNU emacs would never make a good program."
I can't believe all the idiots on /. ...
They're talking about an extra tax on wifi hardware, not on "usage" per se. The tax would be at time of sale. RTFA, people.
Are we missing something here?
Wouldn't it be pretty simple to tax at point of sale for wifi devices? and/or tax on imports of wifi devices?
I guess for annually recurring taxes, a government might require some sort of registration, in order to purchase wifi devices, and then basically license there use???
-5
So, they are going to what - count the number of wifi devices you have in your house? How is this supposed to work?
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
I think you just answered your own question.
The most obvious route is to tax devices when they are retailed.
I have to say that this is definitely a case of taxing something for the sake of filling government coffers which is just plain wrong!
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
So is the 2.4Ghz band not public in Japan like it is in the US (and I would assume Europe)? Or, does their equivilent of the FCC just encourage this kind of thing?
Sounds to me like somebody decided that there's a big pot o' gold waiting for them if they can tax the numerous WiFi operators. It also sounds to me like they didn't think it through one bit. What an effective way to kill a technology like this.
The reason this would be an unfair tax is that it's a tax on transmitters, but not a license for spectrum use.
The cell-phone frequency example cited in the article puts Joe Japanese Wifi User on par with cell companies. However, cell companies get a slice of spectrum *licensed*, all to themselves. If they find someone transmitting on that frequency other than themselves, they can order them to shut down, and/or take them to court.
Joe Wifi User gets no such protection. If two guys buy Wifi base stations and set them up next to each other, they both 'payed for the use of the spectrum' and get exactly the same ( no ) protection for the money they've paid. It's just an extra, specific tax on wifi equipment, not any sort of 'spectrum use' fee. A spectrum use fee implies a protected license to use that spectrum. Wifi ain't like that, we're all using the *same* range of frequencies.
This is the way the government works. I wouldn't be suprised if our government is currently pursuing an equivalent system. The government makes the carriers (backbone, isps) pay for a right-of-way on the physical cabeling through their districts. They also have to pay large amounts of taxes on using this infastructure.
With wireless the government loses out on any direct profit from communication systems, because where the simplicity of wireless comes in it also brings a giant headache for them. I expect to hear something along these lines happening any time in the near future.
Steal This Sig
Finally, someone who read the article. Yes, they tax it at retail time. It's a one-time fee.
Six score characters.
Brevity being wit's soul
I have enough space.
Japan is big in *consumer electronics*, small clever molded devices that do one thing. General purpose computing is, if anything, less big than in the US.
May we never see th
It won't be for the service: "The ministry plans to collect fees from users of information appliances when they purchase these products, according to the sources."
"We're breaking out the ramen noodles. . . "
"Really? Is it someone's birthday?"
Could be an urban legend, but doesn't the UK have a television tax, along with some way to check for television usage?
What would one expect? I am sure there will be a nice little movement to charge Universal Service Fee as well. Never mind that it's illogical. Just pray that if these fees get added, they'd be one time only, and not "every month that equipment is in use". Then you will pay for VOIP dearly -- your broadband provider, tax on broadband access, tax on VOIP service, tax on WiFi router that is used to connect VOIP box. :)
Socialism is alive and well here...
Hyperom.com
Is my patience. Someone should commit seppku for suggesting such a stupid idea.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Here is a helpful list of potentially taxable items for the government to increase revenue
/.
1) air
2) hair growth
3) pictures taken of public land
4) heart beats
5) using walkways
6) chimpanzee's entering the white house
also, here are things that perhaps should require a license
1) Walking
2) using compound sentences
3) posting to
Welcome to TV Licensing
Detection and Penalties
this is probably someones answer as how to equalize voice over ip with plain old telephone taxes...
straws.
Japan's national debt rivals that of the US, despite the fact that Japan's GDP is only 40% of the US, though a mitigating factor is that Japan's debt is almost all domestically held, whereas the US's is held by a large number of foriegn countries, including ironically Japan. Japan's debt is 140% of their GDP, the highest in the industrialized world. The reason? Taxes are relatively low in Japan to begin with, but Japan insisted on spending it's way out of a recession by so many useless public works projects(which is why I cringe every time the US highway bill is passed), and failed miserably. It was absolutely amazing to me when I was there, I saw construction crews tear apart a perfect road to pave it again. I was dumbfounded(esp. since I come from PA, where they won't fix the roads even when they need it) And with the deepening pension scandal, where politicians didn't pay into Japan's pension system for many years, expect many more wacky taxes to come out of Japan..
In Soviet Russia, WiFi taxes you.
It is not our abilities that show what we truly are... it is our choices.
From the article:
So, its a per-device tax. Still a bad idea, and not very fair, perhaps, since some people will use the devices more than others (and in more crowded places), but this is a whole lot better than, say, per-minute useage charges.
-jim
I know that Korea had TV taxes, at least then I lived there.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
Yup, although it's not a tax, it's a licence fee - while it's a legal requirement to have a TV licence, the money raised goes to run the BBC. The money is not raised nor spent by the government.
And this is why the BBC doesn't have to dedicate itself to the pursuit of displaying advertisements to eyeballs, which in turn is why our television's so enormously better than the shitty, advertising-dominated stuff Americans seem willing to put up with.
They should just set up a special "Hello Kitty" tax. It should solve their debt problems in no time.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
We have to pay for our water here (UK), and I imagine most people reading this will pay a similar levy.
All well and good, it costs money to process the water for consumption.
But it is mandated that *all* precipitation belongs to the state.
You cannot (legally) collect water for drinking yourself.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Right here in Norway. It is called "Høythbjånds skatan", or as it is called among the geeks here "Tis mig i øret", which is a delicious pun. Anyway unlike this one time fee suggested in Japan, we must register when buying our favorite Linksys or whatever and the tax is around 50$ pr year.
The fun thing is that most shops does not register people when they sell it(like when you buy a tv). I have yet to see this tax enforced and most people does not know it exists.
In all fairness, I must say that this law was before the days of wifi so it is a kind of a "leftover" that should be put to death.
It's the licence fee, but you only need to pay it if you have a way to pick up the BBC. If you live somewhere where the BBC channels are unreceivable, you don't have to pay :) Also if you don't have a TV, etc., etc.
Florida Proposes Taxing Local LANs
We have to pay for our air here (UK), and I imagine most people reading this will pay a similar levy.
All well and good, it costs money to process the air for consumption.
But it is mandated that *all* oxygen belongs to the state.
You cannot (legally) collect air for breathing yourself.
2000 Yen is 18 US Dollars and 22 Cents or 9.88 GBP, Did you say substantial? A Yen is about equivalent to 1/100th of a US Dollar or one Cent.
This gives me a good feeling for the night! Maybe interesting to think about!
Buy used WiFi gear. If there isn't a good market for it yet, POS taxes will create one.
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
This isn't exactly news, not for Japan anyways.
Seriously, evertyhing there is controlled/owned by commercial corporations. Want the weather forcast? You can pay an extra fee so you can see them on your uber-1337 cellphone. Got used to free (i.e. state provided) services and infrastructure? Start unlearning fast if Japan is your stay!
I propose that there be a taxing tax, in which taxing as an action is itself taxed. This way, there will be fewer taxations coming out. Of course, the taxing tax itself can be taxed and so on to infinity.
All right, I guess I'll admit I don't get this one. Soviet Russia, yeah; "3. Profit!", yeah; welcoming our new overlords, yeah. "In Japan", no. What's the joke?
Vista:XPSP2::ME:98SE
Yes... Here in the UK, we pay some ridiculous fee (£120 or something) to simply own a television or video (or anything that is capable of utilising the terrestrial television transmissions). Most of the money goes to fund the BBC Television channels (which have *NO* adverts!) but I think a lot of people would rather it was free to own a TV and would be happy to put up with a few adverts to support the BBC channels.
Nick...
I tip my hat to you, sir. Ontopic, funny, and making use of a repetitive joke.
The depth astounds me. And if I don't stop I'm going to sound like and English major.
The UK television license (minus collection costs) goes entirely to the BBC which provides 5-8 reasonably good to excellent ad-free television channels (including digital and interactive), a large number of ad-free radio stations, and the UK's most popular website. All include large amounts of quality original content. At about 2 pounds ($3) per week it's a tax I personally am happy to pay.
Depends on local spectum regulations.
Amateur radio operators have to pay a yearly license fee in most european countries, but they are not protected from interference from others amateur radio stations, beacuse the amateur radio license is a shared spectrum one. Anyway amateur radio is protected from interference from other services or illegal transmission.
I don't think they'd be happy to put up with TV if the BBC was changed. Sure, in theory not paying the TV licence is a nice idea, but who wants a world where 100% of the media is commerical? Have you ever been to America?
Now Sky - there's a thing. People seem bizarrely happy to pay far more than the licence fee for a million channels, about two of which are any good. These people seem incapable of using logic.
pretty bad though. the government agency that allocates frequencies gave the 2.4ghz band to an electric utility company. they use that frequency for their monitoring (scada.)
people pay the price for government's mistake in our case.
Live your life each day as if it was your last.
I know. Hence my listed attribution for the quote. Weren't some weird /.'er who done said it, This came from a ancient staid and respectable Scientific Journal.
Which shows you CAN fools some of the people some of the time...
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
Excellent resource. Thanks!
Vista:XPSP2::ME:98SE