Slashdot Mirror
California Takes A Last Swing At VoIP
JamesB writes "News.com's Ben Charny reports that two California cities want to tax Internet telephony. This news comes on the eve of the FCC ruling on whether federal regulations will preempt local ones."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
I Hate to say this, but the great thing about VoIP is that it doesn't need to be located in any particular city or state, Outsource it to India.
I buy my Skype credits from a site in Europe. Not sure how they are going to be convinced to share my private personal data with the State of California.
Besides, the minutes are so cheap, the government tax seekers may be in for a rude awakening when it dawns on them that even a tax as high as ten percent of one penny is still less than one penny.
It may have been a good idea if VOIP minutely rates compared to real phone rates. But the days of $80 phone calls are gone.
"News.com's Ben Charny reports that two California cities want to tax Internet telephony. This news comes on the eve of the FCC ruling on whether federal regulations will preempt local ones."
Let's cut to the chase. What will we get out of being taxed? Will the service be more reliable? Will I get service guarentees? Will my bill be even lower? What's in it for me, if you start taxing Internet Telephony?
VoIP is not going to be easy to regulate. This makes only slightly more sense then regulating something like... say, IRC. The only reason government has a need to intervene with VoIP in any way is to provide 911 services and possibly wiretapping.
This entire issue is very much about reduced gov't and reduced taxation vs. increased gov't and more taxes.
State and local policiticans see VoIP is an easy mark for more tax revenue. But it's only taxable if they can control the entire telephone and long distance business thru state level regulation. So don't underestimate the determination here, both of these issues greatly increase the power of local politicians.
Since VoIP is only used by businesses and a few not-too-vocal consumers, it's an popular and easy mark to tax right now. And the common man sees lots of taxes on his home phone bills, so it's only fair that everyone else pay taxes on their phone calls, right?
The monopoly ILEC's see taxation as a matter of reducing competitors' advantage and controlling the growth of VoIP for smaller customers.
They are late to the party on VoIP and want to use taxes as a means of reducing competition for their POTS based services. It's also seen as a way of narrowing the playing field. More taxes means more regulation, more lawyers, and more barriers to competition.
What would Groucho do?