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Senator Warns of Email Tax This Fall
cnet-declan writes "State and local governments in Washington this week began an all-out lobbying push for the power to tax the Internet, according to our article at News.com. A new Senate bill would usher in Internet sales taxes, and the Federation of Tax Administrators (representing state tax collectors) advised senators at a hearing on Wednesday not to renew a temporary moratorium limiting broadband taxes that expires in November. One irked Republican senator warned that unless the moratorium is renewed, we could start seeing email taxes by the end of the year. Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey blames it on the Democrats taking over, as do Yahoo and eBay lobbyists. Is this a non-hoax version of bill 602P?"
They don't have to. TFAs are actually about taxing sales made over the internet, plus possible taxes on internet connections themselves. The whole email thing appears to be either a submitter or an editor invention.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
maybe this would be an opportunity to take out some spammers a la Al Capone. Hit em with some tax fraud for all the wonderful pharmaceutical, mortgage, personal advices, etc. that everyone seems to need so desperately.
From TFA:
"One senator is even predicting taxes on e-mail."
Thank you for reading...
In the US -- and the article is about US taxes -- most landlines are billed a flat monthly fee for local service. Taxes are charged on this service, but in proportion to the total bill, not the number or duration of local calls made. Taxes on your local service would be the same if you made 0 or several thousand minutes of local calls. If you called a cab long distance, you would pay per minute for the call and be taxed on its cost, but that's not likely.
I am not a crackpot.
Exactly, he is just trying to create FUD, and people all over slashdot are spreading the message "the government/Democrats want to tax my email" when it is nothing of the sort.
I just skimmed the bill linked in the summary... is it just me, or does this 1) not appear to apply to email whatsoever (it's not mentioned anywhere in the bill, though VOIP is) and 2) only applies to business doing $5 million USD or more in business a year.
There are two separate things going on here.
First, the bill in the story has nothing to do with taxing internet email. It has to do with, specifically, sales taxes on goods purchased over the internet.
The second part of the story is about the temporary moratorium limiting broadband taxes which limits taxes on items such as email, web surfing, etc.
Needless to say, these things are completely different. Leave it to crap|net to mix them all up to get your feathers ruffled.
In the first case, the bill being sponsored by Mr Envi, I kind of understand where he is coming from. States and local governments get a lot of their revenue from sales tax. Since there has been an increasing number of purchases made online, state and local governments and losing out on that sales tax money, which means they need to raise other taxes (e.g. property, fuel) in order to compensate. This hurts everyone, even those that do not own computers, and especially hurts the elderly who live on limited income. This bill also simplifies how states collect taxes for retailers to reduce paperwork, and has an exemption for e-tailers that earn less than $5 million a year doing internet sales.
On the temporary moratorium limiting broadband taxes, this is something that has been renewed every couple of years for the last several under the Republican-led congress. The idea is that general broadband services are not taxed, such as email and web surfing, at the federal and state levels. It does not appear this will be renewed which means *new* taxes could (and probably will) be added to Internet users.
Now that it is clear...
While some may point out that Mr. Enzi is a Republican raising taxes, he's not so much raising taxes as he is 1) simplifying sales taxes; 2) ensuring the "current" level of taxes imposed by states; 3) thus reducing property taxes; 4) helping maintain state governments who are having financial problems due to lack of sales tax revenue.
On the other hand, the Democrats, if they do not renew the ban on broadband taxes, will be creating new taxes that will impact every internet user. These are not taxes that are being avoided or taxes that are being suppressed.... these are NEW taxes.. and we all know how the Democrats love their taxes!
No. If the business has a physical presence in your state, then it is taxed at your state's rate.
If the business doesn't have a physical presence in your state, then it isn't taxed. At least in practical terms, that is.
In theory, the states typically think they are due tax, and it is supposed to be voluntarily paid by the consumer on the consumer's state tax return. But without a physical business presence in said state, there is no good way to enforce that.
Brief Overview of Congressman Pauls Record
He has never voted to raise taxes.
He has never voted for an unbalanced budget.
He has never voted for a federal restriction on gun ownership.
He has never voted to raise congressional pay.
He has never taken a government-paid junket.
He has never voted to increase the power of the executive branch.
He voted against the Patriot Act.
He voted against regulating the Internet.
He voted against the Iraq war.
http://www.ronpaul2008.com/
You really didn't read TFA, did you? Understandable, really, /. being what it is.
The last two paragraphs were, quite specifically, about taxing e-mail.
The upshot? Federal tax agencies express no interest in an e-mail tax, but if the internet service tax moratorium expires you can count on at least a few lesser jurisdictions (states, municipalities, etc.) to attempt to impose come crack-brained e-mail tax (or something similar). I'd expect in that case they'd just levy a flat or proportionate fee and call it a message communication tax or something. (Rather than try to define e-mail in some measurable and definite sense and then monitor your traffic to count the number of times you do measured and defined thing X.)
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
http://www.homelandstupidity.us/2005/07/02/spanish -american-war-tax-on-telephone-service-continues-t oday/
Spanish-American war, actually.
The desire to hold public office should disqualify one from holding public office. (With apologies to DNA)
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
Probably because going across the street crossed a LATA line, a line that was defined after the AT&T breakup. Anything that crosses a LATA line is defined as long distance, even if it is in the same area code.
DocWat232
He's against abortion, gays, all the usual stuff.
Not much of a Libertarian at all.
Ahem:
http://politechbot.com/docs/enzi.sales.tax.bill.0
"Thank you Hilary and the Dems for destroying the last bits of American competitiveness, and thank you to the American people for voting these imbeciles in."
It would appear that the likes of YOU voted these particular imbeciles in:
http://enzi.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseActio
If you use the internet to make a purchase from a business that has no prescence in that state, you are exempt from state taxes.
You are not exempt. Many states have a "use tax" which residents are supposed to file for and pay.
FalconShould there be a Law?