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Internet Tax Imminent?
jhigh writes "Proposals to tax the Internet are gaining steam as state legislators see a giant pot of money just waiting to be dipped into. "At the moment, states and municipalities are frequently barred by federal law from collecting both access and sales taxes. But they're hoping that their new lobbying effort, coordinated by groups including the National Governors Association, will pay off by permitting them to collect billions of dollars in new revenue by next year.""
Now where have I seen this before? Oh yeah, here! And it's even a link to the exact same article...
This guy's the limit!
Is anyone honestly surprised that politicians want to dip government coffers into a network (series of tubes?) that generates billions of dollars annually? It's just a matter of time.
Good. The sooner, the better. I can't wait to see the consumer-whores freak out over not being able to dodge sales tax at the expense of their local communities! Bring back local businesses. Make Net businesses compete on the same level as their brick-and-mortar counterparts.
I don't respond to AC's.
I already pay PST/GST on my net connection, and I pay taxes [or duties] on packages bought online. They want to tax on top of the tax I already pay?
How the hell do you tax email? What if you run your own server?
Step 1. Understand technology
Step 2. Legislate it
Step 3. Represent your constituents.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
The less taxes, the better. Removing taxes removes money from the Government. Removing money from the Government removes power. A less powerful Government is always a good thing.
I wonder if I use bold in my signature, people will notice my posts.
I pay for access. My ISP pays taxes on their revenue. Does that not count?
My ISP pays the owner of lines they lease. The line owner pays taxes on their revenue. Does that not count?
My ISP pays other ISP's in access agreements. They all pay taxes. Does that not count?
The service providers make revenue. They pay taxes on the revenue. Does that not count?
On top of the services there are advertisers. They make revenues and pay taxes. Does that not count?
It seems to me the whole system is already covered.
When is the tea party?
Let's get businesses off of the Internet, and take it back to what it's supposed to be:
A global pornography repository.
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
I don't see the problem with the sales tax part. If brick and mortar stores are required to collect sales tax, then so should online shops. Online shops shouldn't get exempt from collection taxes just because they don't have a physical presence in the state. A web site is just as good as a physical presence, and if you want to sell to people in a certain country or state, you should be prepared to collect taxes for that state. I live in Canada, and have to pay sales tax on every online purchase I make, I don't see why Americans think it should be any different.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
When's the MMORPG tax?
Nothing is more dangerous than a programmer with a screwdriver.
If they're taxing the tubes, does any commerce that goes through them get marked up, thus hiking prices for the consumer? I mean, fantastic, well done Uncle Sam - you've discovered a new and massive source of revenue, which incidentally buggers a large and growing element in your economy! Way to combat the national debt and fight the next dotcom bubble-burst.
And, more importantly, I'd like to know how this affects other countries. How many key internet services are run from or through the US? ICANN, DNS etc... all this and net-neutrality too. Why does the world seem slightly more fucked up every time you get up in the morning?
Sorry, I'm done. You can mod me down now.
Meta will eat itself
Nope, not new taxes. Just taxes people are supposed to be paying now and aren't. It puts local businesses at a distinct disadvantage. They still need to address the complexity issue before they can do any kind of collection requirements. Dealing with nationwide taxes and tens of thousands of different tax rules is too much of a burden for small businesses.
But that won't be popular in many states, especially the red states, where there is not as much online business. The tax should be collected by the company that sells the goods and services for the state they reside in because that is how it would be done if you went to their store and bought it in person.
beyond the practical considerations that seem to make it almost impossible to enforce such a law, if they managed to do it it would be the end of the american domination of the net ...
there's a lot of space in sweden !
Great, now each of my Emails will cost $.41
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. -Albert Einstein
This is VERY good news. Just the other day I was complaining to my friends how I don't pay enough in taxes. I mean Federal, state, FICA, Medicare, sales tax, gas tax, car tax at purchase, car excise tax every year, property tax, car renewal tax every year, car inspection tax every year, tax on cell phone service, tax on cable service, tax on internet service, tax on food, etc. etc. This is not enough! I must be taxed more!
33% of every work week is worked just to pay the big 3 in taxes. I wonder what it is when you factor in all the above (and anything I missed). At some point something as got to give.
To pay for this necessary war... and the next ones we'll wage. Taxing internet purchases is clearly a lobby of the retailers which don't have internet presence. Think it over for a second - if it's cheaper to buy on the Internet (including shipping) why would you buy locally? This obviously disturbs local retailers which have lobbied and are becoming successful. What amazes me is this "Internet e-mail tax" that I keep reading about --http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2007/05/28/taxes-o n-e-mail-may-not-be-a-hoax-this-time/
This isn't a joke.
Do they feel the need to tax access usage when I already pay a fee monthly for said access. They don't need to try and find a way to tax specifics of the net. If they want to get revenue, put a Federal flat tax like FCC on the access method so that its spread out to all customers fairly. Mom and pop with business class DSL will pay more than Joe who only needs 56K to download his emails..And of course, Microsoft will pay heavy tolls for all its bandwidth. Also, I feel if they do this tax, they should sell not unlimited but bandwidth packages. There is a difference in having 10Mbit down for casual browsing and 10Mbit down for media consumption junkies. They could tax the method via flat tax and tax on a curve the bandwidth useage and keep it fair. I'm against taxation of anything and everything that can be taxed in general, but if they have to do it, I hope they do it right and in a method that creates an overhead the tax itself can barely fund.
Deleted
Only local areas can collect sales tax. There is as of yet, no national sales tax.
Catalog sales have always been exempt from sales tax when they cross State lines. This is also the case with the internet, which is likened to catalog sales.
To tax all internet sales is to:
1) create a national sales tax
or
2) give local municipalities the authority to tax sales that cross State boundaries, which is forbidden, and outside of their jurisdiction.
3) as a previous poster noted, tax upon tax upon tax.
4) harm the economy which is already suffering from the tax of dollar devaluation and the tax of higher interest rates.
5) federalize matters which the Constitution does not give to the federal government, such as sales tax.
6)Precedent for a tax on individual telephone calls.
Basically, the federal government has no authority to do this.
The several States have no authority to do this.
Local municipalities have no authority to do this.
the most regressive tax there is!
Monstar L
Get your phone and blow their ears off. It worked with net neutrality. It will work with this nonsense.
Read radical news here
Ron Paul is against taxation of the internet. If you don't want to pay extra internet taxes, vote for Ron Paul - first in the republican primary, then in the presidential election next year.
Because most people will say they believe the government pisses off a good deal of our money like a drunk in a casino.(or a drunk senator in a casino) You could probably find a story in the news every day of the week about legislators wiping their ass with our tax dollars and throwing them away. Why give them more when they'd have enough if they didn't spend it like a 16 year old teenage girl?
For some reason I refuse to use either spell check or the spacebar properly.
they could legalize and tax marijuana instead.
Because if their lobbying group was working on behalf of companies instead, they would be a bunch of corporate shills and get blacklisted on Sourcewatch and all sorts of things.
Deleted
Lots of crazy implications here by taxing online sales.
Watch the pendulum swing back toward brick-and-mortar stores. Previously I would go to the showroom or store to physically see/touch/learn about a product, then go back home and order it online (because it would invariably be cheaper). Taxing the product online makes me less inclined to take that additional step if I decide to make the purchase. YMMV.
This is going to hurt the online-only shops, as the taxes will dip into profits. Some small shops (and startups) are only in business because a physical shop (either buying, building or leasing) was simply not feasible, and taxation is not going to help.
How is this going to work if the collecting of funds and the supply-chain fulfillment happens outside of the taxing authority's jurisdiction? If I'm a US business setting up shop in the Bahamas and decide to sell goods made and warehoused in China, and drop-shipping from there back to US customers, what authority would anyone on US soil have to force me to pony up the taxes back to the States? (BTW, I'm just asking... I don't own or operate any business as of this writing.)
How would any government (State and/or Federal) plan to enforce any legislation it plans, with regard to online taxation? Seems I may not have a lot to worry about, given it's track record in reducing and regulating spam. (I don't know about you all, but last week's arrest of Robert Soloway didn't do much to unclog any of my Inboxes).
If successful, all this may do is make the small shops run away. Who will this help, anyway?
Did anyone think about the implications beyond "oooohhh... free money!"...?!
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
...ok, if they decide to start charging sales tax on US purchases, what precisely is going to stop people from simply buying overseas? If they tax business imports, what will stop those stores from going to global commerce sites like e-bay?
I come from North Carolina. We invented NASCAR raceing because we got bored from bootlegging. Outwitting revenuers has been a sport here for a century. If we get not just a sales tax on the connection, but a "connection tax," will my open AP "WardriversWelcome" become a bootlegging operation?
The government, here and elsewhere, has shown a great willingness to try and control access to and content on the internet. However, direct control will equal censorship, and will always be declared unconstitutional. But if the internet can be licensed and taxed, the states can effectively control who can get connections. Imagine taxing internet connections at the same level as alcohol, somewhere between 25-62% in NC. Just imagine how many people that could price out of the market, and how onerous the effect would be on the rest of us. Imagine a bandwith tax sold to curtail piracy, but effectively cutting off Linux distributions.
Maybe bootlegging will come back into fashion again. Instead of stills we'll have WAPs, but we'll still have the revenuers with the machine guns, dynamite, and axes.
Why don't we ever tax government? I mean, you tax something to get less of it, right? To discourage people from doing it. So let's put a tax on government, because if ever there was a drug on the market, it's government.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Wait, they don't ALREADY collect enough in taxes? They need MORE? Too many pet projects that need coerced dollars, I guess.
Surely, you must be joking. Alas, no.
Rather than just getting mad about extra taxes, my question is: for what will the revenue be used?
Will it offset other taxes? Will it improve infrastructure?
My guess is it will simply be used to continue or expand already-broken social programs. Note that I don't necessarily advocate the elimination of social programs, but I don't think, for instance, the way to "fix" health-care costs is to subsidize them. (I think the true fix has to do with limiting liability and removing barriers to entry, incidentally.)
That's my problem - currently there is nothing that the government doesn't have enough money to do for which I want to pay more. That is, the government already provides the services I want at the price I'm currently paying. I don't want to pay more for services I don't want or need.
That's the fundamental problem with increasing taxes in the end: if people are not asking for additional services, then there should be no need for additional taxes. The problem is that some people do want more services, but the assumption is that everyone wants them. This is incorrect, as such things are usually typically very localized. I think the governments - federal and state - need to start paying more attention to geographical differences and stop trying to pass legislation that applies desires of people in one geographic or demographic region to all other geographic or demographic regions....
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
I agree. Making sales taxes apply to internet purchases makes sales taxes slightly less regressive than they already are. That is, if you spend 50% of your income on purchases subject to sales tax (as the poor are likley to do since things like food is a larger part of your budget) you pay a greater percentage of your income in sales tax than people who are more affluent. The wealthy spend a smaller percentage of their income on things subject to sales tax and are thus taxed at a lower rate.
For example:
Person X: $2000/month take home pay of which $400 is spent on things subject to a 5% sales tax. He pays $20/month in sales tax - or 1%.
Person Y: $8000/month take home pay of which $1000 is spent on things subject to sales tax. He pays $50/month in sales tax - or 0.6%.
So sales tax is inherently regressive. When sales tax doesn't apply to internet purchases, that means that those with internet access (the more affluent) pay less sales tax than the poor. So taxing internet purchases makes those who are more affluent (and more likely to purchase things from the internet) pay even less in taxes.
So I think this is EXTRA good!
Ron Paul is against taxation of the internet. If you don't want to pay extra internet taxes, vote for Ron Paul - first in the republican primary, then in the presidential election next year.
Sam has one liberty, which he sacrifices for one security. Can you tell me what Sam has now?
In your China-webshop situation, shipments can be easily taxed at the customs office when arriving in the USA. They are taxed this way when I (in Europe) order stuff from USA.
You'll vote them out of office. You'll write a letter. You'll run for office. But than again you realize you are too lazy to do all that. It's hard. You've failed, again.
Sure you work hard, and then bury yourself in work so you wont have to think about it. You, American voters, would even allow them to tax your income without a fight. Once, long ago, you had a spine and got upset about a 3% increase in the tax of tea, based on how the money was going to be used. Now you allow yourselves to be taxed at an insane level that nullifies the concept of liberty almost completely, seeing as you are a slave for almost half a year to taxes. Liberty or death? That's a good deal of both.
Please wake up all you smart computer people. Why is it the collective forces of the internet can create amazing projects such as software, operating systems, and the odd Groklaw, but has yet to create a great project for "hacking", tweaking, and tuning government via an organized effort of lobbying, letter writing, and education?
Come on. You sit there and allow someone to take almost six months of your life per year with only the smallest whimper? If that's the case almost nothing will gain your outrage.
Once again your bluff is being called. What are you going to do about it?
-- Prepared at the direction of, or to be sent to Legal Counsel, in anticipation of litigation. Attorney Client Pri
I think DARPA just called, they want the Internet back...
I'm so angry about this, I'm going back to semaphore.
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
I can understand paying a sales tax on an item purchased online. That only makes sense to me.
1) State budget has to find the money no coming in sales tax from somewhere, and I sure as hell think that people are not ready to see their property tax being raised, for example.
2) In the interest of fairness: brick and mortar shops in a state have to collect sales tax. Why would a shop out of the state not have to? That's unfair to the local shop.
The main problem with that is the vastly different tax rules across various states. THat will be a very complicated issue for online shops... (time to get into the Website consulting business I guess, if that works they will have work!)
But I can't understand why in hell there should be an "access tax". This is just a new way of getting money, which is not lost anywhere else (as long as sales tax is collected).
If someone can explain to me what that "access tax" would be, I'd be happy. Cause TFA does not seem to dwell on it, and that is the problematic part AFAIC.
That's not a nick, that's my NAME.
For all of you people complaining that they are only raising these taxes to pay for the war, or XYZ national spending, they aren't. This is strictly (at this point) a state issue. The states want to raise taxes, the states are lobbying to increase their local revenue. Granted, once the net access moratorium expires, the feds will probably be the 1st or second ones (behind california) to start taxing net access, but the sales tax issues are strictly the states. The federal government doesn't levy sales taxes, and that is part of the problem with sales tax, you have thousands of tax bodies, and amazon, ebay, et al would have to understand and compute sales tax based on these thousands if not hundreds of thousands of rules.
Now, I'm as much against having internet taxes as any respectable slashdotter, but don't blame the Feds, this is the states lobbying (and the democrats love of taxation), but it isn't going to pay for the war. BTW, this issue is the #1 reason I always vote republican. The Democrats haven't even been in power 1 year, and they're already going to screw the internet. Seriously, since the internet started to get big in 93-94, the Republicans have been in power in congress. It only takes the democrats 6 months in power to totally ruin it?!
If this goes through Amazon would have to have a moratorium on hiring programmers, and they'd have to halt any new features they are working on. They'd have to hire as many accountants as they would normally programmers, and put all their coders to work implementing the new tax collection system on behalf of all the state and local governments. At least in the state I live in, depending on where you sell a product, you could be responsible to collect state, county, and municipality sales taxes all individually. You then have to file a tax return with all 3 of the collecting bodies.
If Amazon is forced to do this, they will have to file > 10,000 tax returns every quarter, lots of fun! And you get the added bonus that most state and local tax collection bodies have no electronic filing for sales tax, no way to automate the process. It is manually printing out a form and mailing it, or maybe if you're lucky faxing it, but either way, its 10,000 tax returns that a person has to physically handle.
Whenever this subject comes up I always marvel at the stupidity of suggesting a tax on e-mail. Not only is it unjustifiable, it's unenforceable.
E-mail removes revenue from the post office, but who cares? The USPS can hire fewer mail carriers as their volume decreases. E-mail runs mostly (if not entirely) over private infrastructure. There is no justification for an e-mail tax, because the government is not providing any significant e-mail related services. Even if you like the idea of Internet access taxes and Internet sales taxes, a tax on e-mail is simply unjust.
And how would we implement an e-mail tax? Even if we decided that it made sense for some reason - if we thought it would make spam uneconomical, for example - it's all over private infrastructure. How could we force SMTP servers to fairly account for the number of SMTP transactions they perform? E-mail server providers like Microsoft and Novell can be forced to build immutable, proprietary reporting into Exchange and Groupwise and other products, but the most common SMTP server is open source. If you are charged a cent per 100 messages you could easily recompile the SMTP daemon to be more generous. And what's to stop people from setting up new servers for unlimited e-mail? A tax on e-mail is unenforceable. I'd be surprised anyone is talking about it, if I didn't know as much about Congress as I do.
That's more an issue of military waste, rather than military funding. We have the Pentagon wasting billions on obsolete, cold-war era equipment (F-22, B-2, Crusader, etc.) while not funding body armor and new mine-resistant vehicles. Its not that the military doesn't have enough money, its that they're not spending it in a productive fashion. Historically, the Army and Marines have always been screwed when it comes to funding whereas the the Navy and Air Force consistently get funding for new billion dollar toys. Throwing more money at the military is not going to fix this issue.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
If it moves tax it, if it still moves regulate it, if it dies subsidize it.
That's big governments answer.
If they do attempt to tax e-mail, or create a per-e-mail fee, or tax Internet use...they would essentially be double-taxing us. We are already taxed for the price of the Internet service...which includes fees and taxes for whatever line you get for your service.
If the government really wanted to put a per-use tax on services like the Internet or e-mail...then they have to completely overhaul how we pay for the service in the first place (which again, is ALREADY taxed).
Mind you, I vote independent, and I'm sure there are plenty of Democrats for this measure, so I'm not trying to defend them. That said, what people tend to forget is that a large number of Congressional Republicans are no longer in favour of small government, and low taxes. Most people with that mentality went to the Libertarian party.
There are WAY too many poor people online right now. If we let them communicate freely, the marketplace of ideas will take over, and the good ones will rise to the top. Good ideas are bad for business. Truth is bad for religious zealotry. As a shareholder and a person who will likely do well in the pending fascist theocracy, I see this as a win for me and all people like me.
Thank God we're going to tax the internet.
Certainly, state governements will not be able to outlaw open, unencrypted access points. Michigan recently convicted a man of a felony for using an open access point, even though the AP owner had no problem with it (you can find three Slashdot dupes about this). That law could easily be struck down by a court for numerous reasons (right to association, cruel punishment, FCC regulations, etc.), but a tax would not.
The state would allow you to share that connection, but you'd be responsible for the use tax, or would be responsible for collecting the taxpayer information. And you have to calculate the tax or handle the tax information, but here are the relevant 3,448 pages of the revised tax code to help you understand better. Oh, and behave and play by our rules, or else you will not be able to get a Tax ID number.
No, it won't be illegal to share Wifi, but it will be just too onerous to share. Just like making your own corn liquor isn't illegal here, you have no shot at making a profit with the taxes and tax regulations in NC with homemade liquor. And that's assuming the county allows alcohol and the state board will grant you a tax ID and license your still.
I pay for access. My ISP pays taxes on their revenue. Does that not count?
No, your ISP pays taxes on its profit, if it makes one. It doesn't pay taxes on its revenue.
All of your later lines follow the same flaw.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
worse many will not compete simply out of choice.
... end of discussion - in other words : We won't even if it means no sale.
Example, I recently purchased a 49L trunk for my motorcycle. The list price is 783.00 (US here) plus $20.00 for the lock. My local dealer, because I bought a bike from him, will give me a 10% off on manufacturer accessories.
Sounds great eh? So that becomes 705 + 18.
Dealer in Virginia wants 673 for the item! Chicago, 626.00
Some deal. When I asked my dealer if they would come down on their price or close to the others they remarked "Chicago discounts too much because they sell on the net"
Tell me how taxing the internet sales will help local business? Many have the same damn mindset and they will continue to rely on ignorant people to pay too much money for the same damn product.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Hmm.. Vote for Ron Paul, if the net does get taxed we should all terminate our internet accounts on the same day to send a message
to Uncle SAM.. One that says, "Up Yours!".
Forget about tracking dissidents, the real danger here is the blackmail potential. So many people on the net feel they have a reasonable level of anonymity. This starts with rudeness in flamewars and extends to interests in porno. I read about an interesting shakedown scam some cops had worked out in an unnamed city. They would take note of the license plates on the expensive cars visiting the gay bars on the shady side of town. Friends in DMV would then run the plates "off the record" and let them find out who those worthy citizens were. Contact would be made with the mark and let him know that photos of the car at the gay bar would not be distributed so long as a little cash were sent the way of the blackmailer.
Well, shit, those cops were thinking small potatoes here. They should ask the KGB how real men leverage this kind of information. That's one of the reasons why the FBI is serious about finding out your dirty secrets in security background checks: if you've got skeletons in the closet, skeletons that could be used against you, then you have a vulnerability.
The thing that makes this idea so terrifying is that proper data mining and association could get the goods on a whole shitload of people. It truly makes you wonder what kind of leverage the right people would have if they made prudent use of the information. "Yes, Mr. Senator? Sorry to bother you but you remember that little favor we mentioned we might be calling in a few years back when we didn't go public with your gay midget fetish? Well, we're calling in the mark now. Be a sport and vote this way on the coming bill. Thank you."
You know that this sort of arm-twisting has been going on for thousands of years in the halls of power but this sort of technological advancement would have to be akin to moving from black powder rifles to machine guns.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
ja ont you american pigs make helga laugh, helga won't pay your taxes, helga no like war
As long as they lay they paperwork on the service providers and not me, I don't care. So the price goes up. Then so do mine to compensate. Let the politicians keep on stealing like this and soon you get hyperinflation, along with loss of business. So let them have their tax, but make sure to demand a raise.
What?
Why don't they ever point out that these billions of dollars will be coming from OUR wallet? There's no magical pot o' gold that this money is coming from. New tax = New way to take money from citizens. I don't care who the tax "applies to" - it always comes out of the citizens' wallet. Tariffs, excise taxes, environmental taxes - all the crap that supposedly "taxes business" is in fact, taxing the people. Why? because the businesses just pass them on (Look at your phone / cable bill).
Message to government:
Stop with the taxing. If I have to live within my means then so should you. If you want more money, do what businesses do - fire someone or come out with a better product. 'Cause right now your employees are fat and your product sucks.
You know that "Firehose" bit at the top of the page after you've logged in? It looks like /. readers who don't flag stories as dupes in the firehose are those to whom we should assign blame.
"Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand" - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Maybe that's how it should be. The current system runs more akin to
Step 1: Realize that somehow the 'net is used by people to escape your influence.
Step 2: Create a law about it.
Step 3: Try hard to come up with a way to execute that law.
Step 4: Create a law that supposedly makes the law created executable.
Repeat from Step 3 'til next election.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The current situation where brick and mortar stores must pay state taxes and on-line stores do not is clearly wrong and must be remedied. Tax loopholes like this create unintended public policy pressure. I just bought a bike from performance Bike shop. If I had bought it a week earlier I would not have had to pay sales tax. But that week the e-tailer opened a brick mortar store 200 mines away from me in my state. Suddenly I can't shop on-line from that company just because they have a store in the state that's too far from me to be practical. Liewise for apple products. These are unintended artifacts of this botched internet tax free zone law.
All internet retailers should have to pay the appropriate state taxes. Even this will not be perfect, since given differences in how states tax it's not clear how to tax an e-tailer that operates out of a property tax driven state when they sell to a customer in a sales tax driven state. But this is a much lesser evil to remedy than the current situation.
Now let's turn to the peril. Right now we have an easy to apply rule. No taxes on internet sales unless there is a brick and mortar presence in the state. Once we get rid of that then legislators may covet levying all sorts of other taxes on internet sales. Sort of like how our phone and other telecom bills get larded up with hard to spot taxes and "fees". Some states might adopt protectionist provisions to protect local stores from national ones. That's not neccessarily bad in it self--it's a state's prerogative to do so short on interfering with interstate commerce. But that tort of meddling is likely to leave open all sorts of tax abuse opportunities.
Thus the parent poster is totally wrong that more taxes are bad. Indeed the more ways to tax people the more possible it is to work out fair tax structures than minimize artifactual consequences. But the parent poster's paranoia is justified. given more ways to tax states sometimes will tax more. The solution to the latter problem is quite simple. have the state set a maximum tax revenue figure that is the combination of all sources. then the state is left to argue over how to distribute that figure over the sources of taxes rather than rasing the final sum.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Our Founding Fathers must be rolling in their graves. Wasn't "taxation without representation" our rallying cry?
FTA:
. We have two taxes on gas and we are near $4.00 per gallon.
"Are we implicitly blessing a situation where states are forced to raise other taxes, such as income or property taxes, to offset the growing loss of sales tax revenue?" Enzi said. "I want to avoid that."
Stop charging insane amounts of taxes. I am here in Illinois and can say one thing; we are already getting hit hard. Here are a few examples:
1) Chicago has the highest gas prices in the country
2) A pack of brand named cigarette cost $8.00 per pack in Cook County (Chicago). Hell, in Mexico; I paid a little over a dollar a pack last year. It is illegal to buy cigarettes from another state or country and having them shipped to Illinois. The imported cigarettes will be confiscated. Outside of Cook County; it is a little over $3.50 per pack. In the state that is over a 200% mark up on taxes and 800% mark up in Chicago/Cook County.
The above two are just examples and I could list more. The states are gouging their citizens; and they are still looking a cashing in again. I have two words: "Fuck that".
Do you get addicted to your Government? No. Quite the opposite.
Do you want more of your Government? No. Quite the opposite.
Does it make you feel good? No. Quite the opposite.
Government is no drug. It's a disease.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I pay for access. My ISP pays taxes on their revenue. Does that not count?
No, and neither does the taxes you pay on the line.
My ISP pays the owner of lines they lease. The line owner pays taxes on their revenue. Does that not count?
No, and neither does the taxes they pay on the line they receive.
My ISP pays other ISP's in access agreements. They all pay taxes. Does that not count?
No, and I'm not sure if ISP service agreements are taxed like end user agreements and if they are, it doesn't count.
The service providers make revenue. They pay taxes on the revenue. Does that not count?
No.
On top of the services there are advertisers. They make revenues and pay taxes. Does that not count?
No.
Short story, it doesn't count because the government (city, state, local, federal) wants a piece from every transaction from everyone. On top of the revenue received at the end of the transaction chain. So the answer for "Isn't this covered by X tax already?" is always going to be no.
I mean, unless I got my US history wrong, I remember dimly that the US people already overthrew a government and fought a war against it over unjustified taxation...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Am I missing something or is everyone else? TFA looks like it's taxing the internet itself, not things bought over the intarnets.
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
Brick and mortar stores just wish they could compete on a level field. Some advantages of online stores:
And on and on. The only advantage I can see for a physical store is an opportunity to fondle the product. Even that is a net cost, since you can't sell as new a display model and these days people will fondle your products and then buy them online.
Buying online is even eco-friendly. The UPS guy was coming to your neighborhood anyway; by driving to three stores to find something that approaches the product you want you're contributing about 50 Kilos of co2 unnecessarily to global warming.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Well, for one thing, there are the ethical implications of not doing so. Believe it or not, there are people in our society who cannot take care of themselves through no fault of their own. Why should we allow people to needlessly suffer and die when we have it within our means to not?
For another, ethical concerns aside, we as a society have a vested interest in making sure that our population is a healthy and productive one. If some members of it aren't, we should do what we can—for the sake of ourselves, if for no other reason, since we also benefit from their future productivity—to ensure that they have a chance to become so again.
Now, I know what you're thinking, that everyone on welfare and other government programs are leeches sucking off the teat of our hard-earned pay. And yes, there are a few people out there like that. But as weird as it may seem, the vast majority of people on government programs don't want to be. They'd love to be in the middle class, or even wealthy.
The problem is that most of these people either 1) don't know how to do so, or 2) have gotten so depressed with a society that systematically prevents them from making more of themselves because everyone is so damned greedy that they figure it's not worth their time and effort. They figure that they'll just end up right where they are now, just shorter of breath and one day closer to death. What's sad is that we as a country used to not be so much this way, but that these people are for the most part correct now.
Do I think that government is doing a spectacular job of helping people to help themselves? No, because it's become rather corrupt with greedy bastards who don't really care about you or me and just want to enjoy the lavish lifestyle of a Congressman. But do I think that one of the reasons government exists is to provide for the general welfare of society by doing things like providing assistance to those who need it? Yes, I most wholeheartedly do.
If that were true, then of logical necessity a government with no power at all would be best. However, in the real world, in places where the power of the government approaches "no power at all", things fairly consistently seem far worse off than in places like the United States, which have a fairly substantial government.
It seems to me quite clearly that there are many factors which go into making a government better or worse, and less power is not, contrary to your assertion, always better.
I guess it's just the position that people find themselves in when they're in local government that makes them think up these weird tax schemes.
What they should do is just increase their general taxes (such as sales tax) by a few tenths of a percent. Instead they come up with taxing X, Y, and Z when it has nothing to do with where the money is spent.
It's one thing to tax gasoline and spend it on roads, but taxing e-mails and spending it on city parks is wacked.
The worst part, though, is the chilling effect that it has on the economy. The damage to the economy is much more than the piddling amounts that these goverments might hope to get from Internet taxes.
As well, I don't see how a local or state goverment can tax interstate communication (which Internet usage almost always is).
Then there's the issue of enforcement: Are the states going to go to the equivalent of the absurdity witnessed in England over the TV tax and tracker vans trying to find unlicenced TVs?
I wonder if Al gore will take credit for creating the Internet Tax too ?
Navy Tim www.navytim.com
It sounds like it. Take a look at your landline phone bill. Mine $50 + $25 in taxes. This is part of what's driving internet phone. I think the phone companies are just looking for internet users to subsidize their rates and then of course the state gets their cut.
By the way check with your locality. Most cities get a cut of your cable bill too. Cary, NC gets about 15% of Time Warner's billable off the top as an 'access fee'. So you're being taxed at least twice and now maybe three times. By God I love living in a Red State that hates the guldurn gubmint and them thar commie taxes.
I mean isn't the parking meter approach to everything specifically a Libertarians' wet dream? Everything is pay as you go. Sounds to me that the complainers are being a tad disingenuous.
Or maybe it's just a slow-news Monday, so CmdrTaco thought it would be environmentally friendly to recycle some old news?
The Democrat Hillary Clinton to bring us closer to "Tommorrow" [sic] and broadband in every home (funny how a feminist like Hillary would allow the use of "broad") then to tax the Internet to support all those how can't afford wideband while shaving off 70% to pay for pork barrel politics to insure continued party victories by buying votes.
Saying that "the Pentagon" is wasting money shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how military funding works. Generally speaking, the Pentagon asks for money for projects (say, gun-gizmos) that the military thinks should be a priority. After that, some wholly-owned congresscritter logrolls whatever crap is manufactured in their district into the budget and the military winds up with a lot of useless, overpriced crud.
Sure, there's a lot of unethical and dishonest stuff that happens--generals going to work for defense contractors and selling to their old buddies, defense contractors who lie about the capabilities and usefullness of their hardware... but overall, I think generals would be a lot happier if they made their own purchasing decisions.
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
Many geeks get it, most do not. Greed is a very powerful force. Never underestimate it. Greed constantly requires more. It is never satisfied.
Once we allow a new stream of income to our government (via a new tax), the government will set out to protect that income. People protect their rice bowls. After the "Internet" tax law, expect new laws regulating the technology to protect the tax (or to enforce it). One commenter said something to the effect of: "How do you tax e-mail if I run my own e-mail server?" Well, the answer is a bit troubling but possible: outlaw your e-mail server unless you pay a licensing fee with the state/county. And if you manipulate the reporting mechanism or hide your server? Well, that is tax fraud my friend - and you will go to jail. I don't think that an Internet tax is an "if" situation, but a "when." Legislation protecting whatever tax law is created will soon follow.
If the legislators move slowly enough, they can have the general public thinking that 'rouge' e-mail servers are terrorists devices. Or perhaps running a web server that isn't licensed and taxed becomes illegal (or any other technology that you can think of). The community's current ability to work around stupid laws using new technology can be taken away with one carefully crafted law. Look at what the DMCA has done, that is the tip of the iceberg. I'm not trying to sound too "doom and gloom." I just want to point out the cold, hard, reality.
The fact that most legislators don't understand technology only indicates that they will pass over-reaching and damaging laws. I might suggest a different approach: help them! Help write a new law that brings taxes to the Internet in a fair, responsible, and implementable way. Help ensure that the legislators, their families, and their voters pay just as much tax as you do. Get involved with how this should work because you don't want the "other guy" to be writing that law. Also ensure that the revenue generated from the tax goes to a definable budget that helps the people. Maybe Internet tax revenue should go to a computer buying assistance program for low income families. Or refunds for returning old computer parts to a state recycling center. The best way to ensure this goes down as gently as possible is to get involved with the process.
This is a common socialist analysis. According to you, the purpose of taxes is to get some people to pay more and some people to pay less. In other words, taxes exist in order to harm the "more affluent".
There's absolutely nothing in your message about helping anyone. Presumably you want to harm the poor by taxing them too, but just not as much.
Lots of us want end the harm and actually succeed in helping people -- by giving them the freedom and the aspiration and the opportunity to succeed and produce more than they need.
Don't count on it. If you start taxing, use will go down drastically. It might even virtually destroy the internet as we know it.
Besides, don't they already tax at a flat rate due to telecommunication taxes, sales taxes on equipment, tax on power use, etc. I always thought double taxation wasn't permitted?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
There are a number of posts here decrying the complexity of creating the infrastructure to calculate and report the sales taxes for sites like Amazon.
Having spent years in the payroll (tax) software world, I can tell you from experience that there are a number of companies that specialize in this type of software for other companies like Amazon.
E.g. Vertex - http://www.vertexinc.com/Products/sales_tax.asp
It really wouldn't be that difficult or take that long to implement sales tax collection.
I'm still opposed to it, but it wouldn't be very difficult.
If you do what you always did, you get what you always got.
Is it different in the US than Canada?
I already pay a tax on my internet bill. And I also get charged sales tax when I buy online from amazon.ca for example.
*confused* Don't Americans have any taxes like these?
Don't get me wrong, I'm totally opposed to paying sales tax on internet purchases. Somehow it feels dirty.
a 03.asp) which I'm required to pay on anything I buy that I didn't pay sales tax on.
On the other hand, I live in Ohio. In Ohio there's this stupid thing called "Use Tax" (http://tax.ohio.gov/faqs/content/sales_and_use/q
Use tax must be paid on all purchases made by Ohio residents and businesses if the proper amount of sales tax has not been paid to the vendor, seller, or service provider. The use tax rate is equal to the sales tax rate in effect in the county where the property is used or benefit of the service is received by the purchaser.
The state is starting to ratchet down on it a bit since, for the first time, for tax year 2006 it actually sent out a separate notice explaining the use tax. They want their money and they know that not everyone is reporting it.
So, if Amazon would start collecting the sales tax then I wouldn't have to figure it out myself and report it. One less headache for me.
If you do what you always did, you get what you always got.
In this day and age, could we produce enough jiggawatts?
"...other taxes may zoom upward instead, warned Sen. Michael Enzi, a Wyoming Republican, at a Senate hearing on Wednesday. "Are we implicitly blessing a situation where states are forced to raise other taxes, such as income or property taxes, to offset the growing loss of sales tax revenue?" Enzi said. "I want to avoid that.""
How about we impose new fiscal responsibility laws on government instead.
The pursuit of absolute tolerance leads to the most rigorous and ludicrous intolerance. - REX MURPHY
Comment removed based on user account deletion
realistically, it's the only way the media companies can ever solve their copyright problems, by applying a tax at the source.
I already pay sales tax on most of my major online purchases... unles Amazon's just fucking me out of that 9.6% or whatever.
What's the big fucking deal. If you buy something, and your state has sales tax, you should pay it. I know that Washington sales tax law even has clauses stating that large purchases (over $500 i believe) being purchased elsewhere for *use* in the state are subject to sales tax.
Is there something here I'm jsut totally missing about all this?
Come read my stupid blagablog. Rants and Giggles
I pay tax everywhere I get my food. Grocery store or restaurant, it doesn't matter. The amount varies, depending on what the city's local rate is, but it's at least 7% - 8%.
If anyone needs me, I'll be in the Angry Dome.
Governments ultimate argument that it's right. Force.
I can come up with a few:
I think the average is actually closer to 35-40% (hence the "tax-free" day being somewhere in May, or some such). Those lower on the scale pay more in SS and sales taxes, whereas those on the top end pay more in income (and tax on unearned income or gains).
Many regressive "taxes" are actually user fees, and are intended to capture the costs of use. Gasoline, personal property, and municipal utility fees are such user fees masquerading as taxes. Sales tax is usually not very regressive in those states which exempt (or limit) food and pharma from sales taxes. Property taxes are normally progressive - though can be entirely decoupled from income in places where long time owners have unrealized capital gains - and as a bonus tend to go almost exclusively to school costs.
Personally, I'd like to see a flat gross receivables tax for every entity (i.e. anyone with a TIN). It's very difficult to hide (there are no deductions), and discourages quick-turn-around transactions (day-trading, real-estate flipping) and multiple-middle-man industries (which benefits local direct merchants - farmers, etc.). Of course, to respond to the cry of regression, I would also institute a fixed exemption of 2087 x federal minimum wage for each unique TIN. So for each person in your household (or for a small business owned by an individual), you get to exclude the amount equal to the annual income of someone making minimum wage. You make minimum, you pay no taxes; you make more, you pay the flat fee. I think I calculated once that it would only take about 2.5-4% to cover the federal budget (which is too big, imho).
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Can you really dip a coffer? http://www.answers.com/coffers?nafid=3
The internet will be taxed on the city & state level, so Ron Paul will be of no help here.
ggggggiiiiiivvvvveee iiiiinnnn to the dark side. Vote for Hiiiillllllllary.
Back in the Bad Old Days where you could only buy things from your local store, you could only really buy the things that were most popular in your local community, because that's all that was on the shelves. I don't want to have my book reading or music listening limited by the small selection a local book or record store feels like carrying, to take just one example.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Ron Paul is against this tax because Ron Paul is against any tax.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
In Canada, if you purchase stuff from other provinces, you do not pay that provinces Sales Tax but you still are required to pay local taxes when you "import said service or goods into the province where it is consumed" or something like that. Businesses pay these taxes. Individuals should, but mostly ignore, though there is a crackdown on large ticket items like cars, so you can't really cheat that easily! For example, on software that is imported from Europe, I have to pay provincial sales tax. (No federal tax like GST, because businesses do not pay that).
Anyway, there is a blurry line on non-tangible stuff and services that one does NOT import into the province. For example, server collocation. If I buy it in another province that does not have a sales tax, do I still pay it? The service is in another province, so why would I?
Or, how about domain names? When do I "import" these??
VOIP is more clearcut as you are clearly importing a service there.
Why don't they just ask us to clog their Phone Lines, Internet Tubes, and Fax Machines? It's a whole lot more polite...
-jX
Don't you just love politics? It's like a comedy of errors.
The central powers have become too centrally powerful.
"Previously I would go to the showroom or store to physically see/touch/learn about a product, then go back home and order it online (because it would invariably be cheaper)."
Last time I went in a physical store to buy a product, only because I wanted to support a local shop and not to see/touch or anytrhing, they told me that the product I was looking for didn't exist (of course it does exist). And I don't need to touch/see most of the things I buy. Only thing where it could have made a difference was my audio monitors, which I bought in a local shop because it is pretty expensive stuff and I felt better that way, though they were not particularly helpful, nor learned me anything that I hadn't read on various reviews and forums.
Now I know that in the US, shopkeepers are possibly more welcoming than here (I'm sure the bets buy guys are great too.. no?), but really, no when I buy online it's never profiteering on local shops, because there's nothing they can learn me that Internet cannot (my local coffee seller doesn't know as much as some "coffee geeks" around), and for ultra specific product where seeing/touching is important, people do not necessarily buy online.
So, no, I don't find this argument to justify any kind of tax.
for false dichotomy. The GP said "the less tax the better". To me that included these brackets "the less tax [we can get away with] the better". Of course you can't just get rid of all taxes. That's why he didn't say it.
"All internet retailers should have to pay the appropriate state taxes. "
They already do. $0.
That's appropriate.
I'd suggest a new law... you can't tax something unless I get a vote in how the tax is administered and spent. That would stop all the crap that goes on in the name of "fairness".
The only "fair" tax is a repealed one.
I know how to stop ATM fees.
Go into your bank and use the human teller every time. If everybody did that and explained why, the bank would cry "uncle" in about 60 days and cut the fees for ATM usage.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
What I'm saying is that I don't trust the government to use this new revenue for any productive purpose. Certainly not for body armor for the troops. (And this is setting aside that the 'internet taxes' that are really at issue here are State taxes; I'm speaking hypothetically about new Federal taxes.) And most certainly not productively enough to offset the cost and inherent inefficiencies that arise when you forcibly take resources away from someone and reallocate it elsewhere, rather than letting them spend it as they would have otherwise.
I might have a different opinion on some hypothetical tax, if the tax were firmly earmarked for a specific purpose, in such a way so that the money couldn't be reallocated later, and that once that purpose had been served, it would have to effectively disappear.
However, since I don't think that's the case of the example we were discussing, I have zero faith in the Federal -- or even in my State -- government to do anything useful with any additional revenue that might be generated.
My point regarding body armor is that, compared to the size of the Federal budget, the cost of doing it would be so small, that the simple fact that it's not already done, indicates that it is very far down on the government's list of priorities. And I believe that further up on their list of priorities, are goals and programs that are so impossible to achieve that they're veritable black holes for money, time, and scarce resources -- meaning that even if you gave them many times more resources than they have now, they'd probably still never get around to it. (Unless, perhaps, there was some sort of ulterior motive; e.g. paying back a quid pro quo from some manufacturer of body armor somewhere.)
You say "There's more than enough money to buy food to feed, clothe, and house every person on Earth. There's more than enough money to put a colony on Mars. There's more than enough money to cure cancer." I appreciate your optimistic outlook and apparent faith. I think there's probably enough resources to do those things too, with truly well-meaning and effective leadership, which is right up there with saying 'it's possible if aliens come and help us.' Before I give the current system access to more resources, I'd want some assurance that they're not going to just pour it down one more bottomless pit, which is what I feel they do with a giant portion of the resources made available to them without many strings attached.
(An aside: The U.S. Government is a near-complete cesspool of waste, bureaucracy, and incompetence. However, I'm also not sure that there are any better models, any better extant examples, for what they're trying to do. Every day, the Federal government gets slightly bigger, in terms of the resources that it has under its jurisdiction. And in so doing, every day, despite the unfathomable quantities of waste it creates, it does something that's never, in the history of human civilization, been done before. In some ways, it's a little surprising that the whole thing works at all. There's no easy solutions there; I certainly don't have some magic bullet. But that said, I'm unconvinced that just scaling the thing bigger and bigger is a good idea, and that's what new taxes do.)
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
...I wonder how "the government" propose to collect these taxes?
Traditionally most taxes have been collected by force / coercion / threat of force, in terms of what is effectively a protection racket. Pre-internet it was generally necessary to have a physical presence in an area in order to do business, which in turn exposed business to said force / coercion / threat of force. The internet solved that problem.
For example, I own a South African company, with offshore servers targeting customers in the states and elsewhere, with "downloadable" products. The only government in a position to tax me is the South African government who are able to exercise coercion / threat of force, etc to make sure that they get their share.
There really is just no real way some American politician could ever collect taxes from my company! (no plausible threat of force = no tax!)
I really hate it when the states or the Fed attempt to enact more tax-and-spend policies.
I'm sure that my state could use the extra cash, as we're understaffed on police, the roads are very poorly maintained statewide and our school system sucks.
However, I have no confidence that the government would be able to collect the tax for less money than the tax would generate. I also have a feeling that the money would just get blown on the ridiculous 'consultancies' that tell our state and local government that we need really expensive crap that doesn't do anything for the common good. For example, we've paid millions into researching light rail that, although seems like a good idea on the surface would never work in this particular place. We've also dumped millions into a downtown revitalization plan that has been mismanaged to the point of criminal negligence.
Before they go after an internet sales tax on the state level, the Fed should go after all the people whose primary business or substantial income is generated by selling stuff online who generally evade paying income tax on the transactions.
How hard would it really be for eBay to 1099 all their sellers? I mean, they collect all the information anyway. As near as I can tell, you need only fill out the paperwork if you use PayPal.
The Fed could even take the money from a Federal internet sales tax and redistribute it to the states themselves or the SBA.
Again, I'm not totally against an internet sales tax, but I think it's generally unenforceable and likely, after the cost of collection, won't actually make much money. It'll just be another departmental expense and administrative nightmare for states that already are running out of control.
Message contains 1 attachment: spam.gif
Property tax isn't strictly regressive. The tax on 1/50th of an apartment building or a small home is a lot lower than the tax on a million dollar mansion. I think making the mill levy progressive is an interesting idea.
I don't think the rental situation is simple at all. When property values rise, rents tend to rise and as we've seen lately when property values fall rents tend to fall. Property owners have to charge what the market will bear, and sometimes that is less than the cost of owning the property. If this goes on for long, property will fall in value as fewer investors buy rental property. If property taxes were doubled, property values would fall which would tend to drive down rent. This would be countered by the increase in renters and the decrease in supply of properties. I can't say which would dominate, but I've seen the rent vs. own cost ratio fluctuate wildly depending on tax law, interest rates, property value trends, inflation, supply/demand changes, local economy, etc.
In any case, it is simplistic to say that property taxes are simply passed through to renters. If property tax was abolished rents would possibly go up as people bought property suddenly driving prices up.
Man, you really need that seminar!
"checkboag"
Read radical news here
Actually, if my friend gives me a Harley for USD $0, I sure as heck owe a couple of thousand dollars in taxes! Try telling the state otherwise, and see how fast you get corrected. As in my example, try "giving away" some of your home-made corn liquor. You still have to send it to the ABC board for inspection and tax stamping. It's tax laws that let them come after you.
Will it be easy for the state to track you? No. But it will be another Damocles' Sword over your head.
"Proposals to tax the Internet are gaining steam as state legislators see a giant pot of money just waiting to be dipped into."
I believe it was Milton Friedman who once said something to the effect of, "A man who is accustomed to helping himself to another man's property has an extremely difficult time breaking himself of that habit once he gets used to the idea." Where is it written that whenever there is a transaction, labor, or storage of capital that the government *must* dip their hand into it and pull out some tax? There are legitimate cases to be made for some taxes, particularly for those items which are related to a service that is being rendered by the government (i.e. defense of your private property against foreign aggression and the court system). However, people have become too accustomed to the notion that the government has a *right* to put their hand in their pocket whenever they feel like it and for whatever reason (or lack thereof) that they (the government) can come up with, especially when the hand goes into their neighbor's pocket instead of their own. Taxes also have the rather nasty property of not going away, even when they become anachronisms due to technological advancement for example, once they government gets used to another revenue stream and the programs funded (wholly or partially) by it. It is best not to introduce new taxes in the first place if it can possibly be helped for these reasons.
The US has complained bitterly to the WTO that indirect taxation acts as an export subsidy/trade barrier. When exporting from an area with direct taxation (property/income taxes) to an area with indirect taxation (sales taxes/VAT) the customer is taxed twice. The first tax is the direct taxes which are included in the price of the product and the indirect taxes which are added at the time of sale. This is largely why VAT rates in the European Union have moved from 2-3% in the 1950's to 20-30% today. It's also one of the reasons the Europeans were the first to attempt to collect VAT on digital goods.
Trade groups like the National Textile Association have been lobbying to move the US away from direct taxation (income, property taxes) and toward VAT as a way of balancing the playing field.
The US government has tried to work around these distortions by rebating taxes for exports but has been slapped around by the WTO every time. States with high sales taxes and no or low property and income taxes will become very attractive for internet retailers. I wonder if the US government would be sympathetic with a state that started rebating taxes for its internet and catalog retailers.
Let the first internal US trade wars begin!
Why don't they just tax the air that we breath while they're at it. Where does it all end? Let's add more taxes. Let's increase existing taxes. If they don't watch their greed, it will spark something that nobody wants.
- Floyd
so that's why Gore invented the internet...
Is this a new and improved Modem Tax to MAKE.MONEY.FAST??
Hmm, will my neighbor who runs an unsecured wireless network, the guy who does the same thing across the street from my favorite lunch spot, and my local library system have to ante-up the tax for my usage? Good luck figuring out how to properly tax shared sub-networks. Any internet tax will have to be minimal to avoid a huge backlash.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
I find it remarkable how similar statements about Republicans get a score of 5, whereas such obvious criticisms of Democrats are considered 'Flamebait'. For shame!
Wish I didn't mispell "racing" though. That's probably the first spelling mistake I've made in a decade. Darn this IE6 and lack of spell-check! I don't have my last line of defense!
I love having been raised a country boy. Yea, I learned to program at 5 years old on my Apple ][, but I spent as many hours of my childhood wandering miles afield through the country. We had some neighbors that bootlegged. And, frankly, I trusted my neighbors far more than the revenuers that would routinely come upon me with weapons drawn when I was out stargazing with my telescope and binoculars (I had a nice $3000 Meade 8" aperture Maksutov-Cassegrain and a deep love of astronomy and cosmology). I even got arrested twice for my troubles, and my telescope got to sit, unattended, for hours in our field.
So, let them tax my connection. It just means I'll be even more motivated to bootleg my signal. It's in my blood to build hot-rods for bootlegging, and any excuse will do!
We're talking the internet here. Sites and servers can be based anywhere in the world.
Companies can be registered in those territories that do not have such foolish 'Internet Taxes'.
All this will accomplish is to enrich India and other locations that can provide IT service including Bandwidth and decimate the US IT industry.
Another region that can be looked at is the Caribbean territories. Same timezones and most allow for Offshore services.
Why would anyone seek to open a totally E-Commerce based business and base it in the United States when they can open the same business elsewhere and make so much more?
The US seems intent to shoot itself in the foot over the Internet and emerging technologies to the point where soon I can't fathom why US firms would seek to open Internet based businesses.
The US apparently is the only country seeking to tax 'gold' in videogames.Not the earnings made from any real world *sale* of Gold involving true currency, but the actual gold in-game itself.
How utterly ignorant is that? And some are saying that such bills have a good chance of getting passed!
-Gel214th
How can the government tax something the don't own?
I would favor a tax or some other method of stopping useless spam.
I have a research project and emails are almost useless because spam filters must be so high.
A fraction of a cent tax would hit massive emailers hard. Finding email addresses spam would allow blocking.
This would put someone to work finding them.
http://visionandpsychosis.net/
Yong man I predicted in 1938 that ze USA tax collectors vuld be travellink all over zis planet trying to collect taxes on ze Internet.
Ven do ve expect ze USA taxan to com to Vienna (or porhaps Iran) to collect your silly American taxes?
Yo vill be stong by our bees!
Goot LUCK vit der tax collecting, silly Amerikans!
- Ze Laws ov Termodynamics? BAH!
Kelvin vas a fool!
Mit Hydrogen + Pinoqachole ve can break zes laws anytime!