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FCC Approves New Internet Phone Taxes
basotl writes to tell us CNet is reporting that the FCC has approved a new round of taxes for internet phone service. Some 4 million users could receive this nasty little surprise as early as their next monthly bill. From the article: "The VoIP industry wasn't alone in questioning the FCC's move. In a letter sent last week to commissioners, attorneys for the U.S. Small Business Administration urged the agency to postpone its action until it had done a thorough analysis of the economic effect on smaller providers."
To think up a way of taxing virtually-free phone calls.
NO NEW TAXES PLEASE!
-- Brought to you by Carl's JR
This is B.S. small voip providers will go out of business.
FCC is working for big telecom.
Dont you already get charged Telecomm taxes if you have DSL, since its basically a phone line anyway?
( i dont have DSL, so no, i cant go look at my bill )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
So what about audio chat inside online computer games? I can talk to other players in - how is that different from telephony?
If I'm taxed for talking to someone using VOIP but not when I happen to be playing a game at the time - then maybe VOIP providers should include a copy of PONG that you can play with the other person while you talk to them?
The idea that you can tax bytes that contain the human voice in realtime - but you don't tax bytes that contain pictures, or human voice that was recorded a few hours ago...of all the millions of uses for data sent over the Internet - why should realtime human voice be singled out as special. It's just silly.
We either need to tax ALL data transfers over shared communications links or NONE of them. Repeal the tax on telephony or tax broadband the same way you tax dialled telephony - there is no practical difference.
Hmmm - so if I use dialup to connect to the Internet - and then use VOIP - do I get taxed twice? I think that's probably illegal.
The lawyers will make a fortune arguing this one.
www.sjbaker.org
If they tax VOIP and not other data, then I want a refund for my YEARS of dialup, when my phone line was used for data and not voice.
If it is leveled by any portion of the government and you don't have a choice about paying it is a tax. You can call it a 'levy' or 'fee', but, it is a tax!
Panic now, beat the rush!
I wonder what they'd to if someone made this set up:
You speak into a microphone and a speach-to-text program IMs the words to your friend's computer which then reads them aloud. Is that voip? Taxable?
-Grey
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Do your SSH tunnels connect to the PSTN? No? Guess you also didnt read the article then, this is for traffic connecting to the PSTN networks and for that generally you need a third party like Verizon or Skype - if you are using an Asterix PBX to roue your calls chances are you are small enough to slip under the readar and they wouldnt care about you anyway.
"If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."
Circumcision is child abuse.
The Universal Service Fund actually does subsidize rural phone users -- poor ones more than richer ones, but a lot of the subsidy goes to the service provider rather than the customer. It's a pretty good chance that without the Universal Service tax, your parents wouldn't have a phone, much less DSL. Or they would be on a party line with 16 other subscribers.
Same thing with schools. A lot fewer elementary or high schools in the US would have Internet connections if it weren't for Universal Service.
Now, I personally, happen to think that getting phone service (and DSL) to rural customers is important. On the other hand I think putting the Internet into schools so that the school can then spend a tidy sum to try to keep viruses and pornography out is kind of dumb. But for some reason they overlooked my name when looking for a candidate to replace Michael Powell (and we should all thank God that he is gone) at the FCC.
Anyway, the US has been subsidizing rural phone users for so long that most of us have forgotten that it happens and we are taxed to support it. We don't have a tax to support DSL to rural areas and as a result, most rural areas don't have broadband. If you believe that subsidizing rural users is important, then taxing calls made via VOIP is perfectly reasonable. (Whether the tax rate is reasonable is a different issue -- and one on which I don't have an opinion.)
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
There's some argument for subsidising infrastructure, but the current model of "taxpayers pay, telcos profit" isn't nessiarily the best plan - it'd be like if the government payed for the construction of a private toll road and then got none of the tolls.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.