Slashdot Mirror


City Councilman: Email Tax Could Discourage Spam, Fund Post Office Functions

New submitter Christopher Fritz writes "The Berkeley, CA city council recently met to discuss the closing of their downtown post office, in attempt to find a way to keep it from relocating. This included talk of 'a very tiny tax' to help keep the U.S. Post Office's vital functions going. The suggestion came from Berkeley City Councilman Gordon Wozniak: 'There should be something like a bit tax. I mean a bit tax could be a cent per gigabit and they would still make, probably, billions of dollars a year And there should be, also, a very tiny tax on email.' He says a one-hundredth of a cent per e-mail tax could discourage spam while not impacting the typical Internet user, and a sales tax on Internet transactions could help fund 'vital functions that the post office serves.' We all know an e-mail tax is infeasible, and sales tax for online purchases and for digital purchases are likely unavoidable forever, but here's hoping talk of taxing data usage doesn't work its way to Washington."

1 of 439 comments (clear)

  1. Re:USPS full of junk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Normally I'm rather polite but since you're a complete idiot I'll forgoe that. You have no clue what you're talking about. The only reason the USPS is doing poorly is because the Republican controlled congress forced them to prefun their pension plan for the next 75 years over a 10 year span. Any entity corporate or otherwise would be going through hardship due to this. Nothing to do with "greedy unions", "poor management" etc ad nauseum. You clearly have no fucking clue what you're talking about and the postal service isn't even allowed to expand to other services because "that would hurt the private sector" wahhh wahhh wahh. It's funny for all the crap about how private sector runs better, this governmental organization has continued to stay afloat despite running a deficit, while under extreme duress and without government funds and while paying their workers a decent wage. Maybe the private sector could learn a bit from them.