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US Lawmakers Push For a Permanent Ban On Internet Access Taxes
jfruh (300774) writes Since 1998, U.S. law has forbidden states from taxing Internet access — but the law has an expiration date that's been extended five times now. The new Congress is attempting to make the ban permanent, but some members are objecting to the fact that the proposed bill leaves in place grandfather clauses for states like Texas and Ohio that already had taxes in place in 1998.
I SUPPORT THIS! (as long as you OK my personal exception) Why is it that we all agree that politicians suck, but we keep getting more suckage? If you keep voting for the lesser of two evils, you keep getting evil.
Later law automagically overrides, so a law cannot make anything permanent.
It is obvious that by "permanent" they mean a law without an automatic expiration date. It is much easier to let a law expire than to pass a new law, especially with the 60 vote threshold in the Senate. There is a huge bias toward inertia.
Although I agree in principle that Internet access is a dumb thing to tax, I disagree even more with the Feds telling the states what to do. If people want to elect legislators that tax their Internet access, that should be their right.
Later law automagically overrides, so a law cannot make anything permanent.
All it'll take is a new law allowing/mandating internet access taxes to make this "permanent" ban vanish.
So they have a temporary law, and they want to make it into a permanent law, and you're saying that's meaningless because they could make another law overriding it? Other events that could render this law meaningless: Civil war, Alien invasion, Meteor strike, Solar flare that destroys all electronics overnight.
eegads, this entire endeavor is meaningless.
Although I personally don't want to pay internet access tax and believe that such taxes make it tougher less advantaged folks, by making it permanent we legitimize loopholes for all kind of special interests. Instead, we've got to get rid of the loopholes. We need to be driving towards a simpler system, with a basic income or similar to deal with inequality / poverty. Anything more is up to you.
The problem is that the current law has a "sunset provision" that says it's void after a certain date. This is the 6th time renewing this ban has come up for debate because of this. A "permanent law" is a misnomer, because as you state even the Constitution can be edited.
The problem with that is the internet is a major avenue of interstate, and even international trade, making it well within the federal bailiwick. Thus the federal government is within its authority to regulate commerce by forbidding or allowing taxation.
The distinction here is the same as between discretionary and mandatory spending. The former needs to be reauthorized (every year since the budget is renewed every year). The latter continues until/unless the law is changed.
The tax prohibition is currently the former type - renewed every few years or it would disappear. Those opposed to the ban have to do nothing but use procedural tricks to block the renewal bill from ever getting to the floor to get the ban revoked. This proposal would make it the latter type - the ban continues until/unless the law is changed. More importantly, those opposed to the ban would have to specifically go on the record as drafting, submitting, and voting for legislation revoking the ban. And face the wrath of internet-using citizens come re-election.
It's hardly meaningless drivel.
Later law automagically overrides, so a law cannot make anything permanent.
All it'll take is a new law allowing/mandating internet access taxes to make this "permanent" ban vanish.
Thank you. It must totally rile you up that permanent magic marker can be removed with rubbing alcohol or the heat-death of the universe.
permanent
adjective
1. lasting or intended to last or remain unchanged indefinitely.
indefinite
adjective
lasting for an unknown or unstated length of time.
"Oh no... he found the
I second that it doesn't seem like a reasonable thing to have the Federal government telling State governments how to tax Internet access. I also agree that it would be a dumb idea for the states to tax the Internet as a money-making device (there's not that much money in it unless you do some ridiculous tax like by the megabyte; it would be easier just to raise the income tax by 0.25% or something like that). I could see some states wanting to set up state-levied universal access fees, but then it would at the state level and better aligned with the individual needs of the states (yay laboratories of Democracy).
I also agree the AC that it is probably within the Fed's power to tell the States they can or cannot tax the Internet under the Commerce clause. But the Commerce clause is so abused it lets anyone do just about anything; and that's a whole other argument.
To tax people.
Texas taxing internet access? Wat is that?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
it's not in tfa, so from another source: "Hawaii, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Texas and Wisconsin currently tax Internet access under ITFA's 1998 grandfather clause. Tennessee, Washington, and New Hampshire are permitted to collect Internet access taxes but do not currently do so." source: http://www.governing.com/news/... just in case anyone else was curious.
Texas doesn't specifically tax ISPs, it just doesn't give them a 100% exemption from the standard sales tax paid on all purchases. Texas DOES exempt the first $25/month, so low-end internet is tax free. Above $25, buying fast internet is just like buying anything else.
Texas has no income tax, so exemptions to the sales tax are necessarily limited - food, and school supplies and clothes during back-to-school season, and not much else.
Normally I'm in favor of states rights, but I think this is a pretty clear cut case of the commerce clause taking precedent. The internet is all about interstate commerce. I mean how often do most people access resources located within their own state? Rarely ever, and practically none of them ONLY use resources in their own state while on the internet. But yeah, other than that, the commerce clause is WAY overused (such as the national 21 year old drinking law.)
I'm in N Central Florida and I've regularly seen traceroutes leaving local residential/commericial access, go up to a NSA-enabled router in Atlanta, and back down to a local college.
Fixed that for you.
I pay sales tax on my internet. Not a huge issue. As long as they don't start adding new specific taxes.
Taxes"
Don't you think you could have used a shorter headline, so Taxes would be on the same line ? you know.. like "US Lawmakers push to make internet tax moratorium permanent"
The problem with that is the internet is a major avenue of interstate, and even international trade,
That doesn't make any sense. The states are not taxing passing traffic - they're not building toll-gates on the interstate.
The tax they want to ban is an access tax - more like a local car registration tax to pay for local road building.
Dumb idea, but none of the fed's business.
Wait a minute! You mean this is just about exempting ISP fees from normal sales tax ? Why?
I thought it must have been some kind of special levy. Most of the developed world has moved away from sales tax to a broad-based "good and services" tax (GST or VAT), as goods have become a much smaller part of our spending than in the past.
Any exemption (almost) is a dumb idea from an economics view, as it distorts the market and increases the cost of compliance and collection.
Even exempting food is a bad idea. (Better to increase benefits etc to compensate the poor.)
The US tax system is a shambles with so many of these special-interest exemptions that wealthy individuals and corporations can end up contributing very little tax.
The only permanent things in the world are death, taxes, and internet pedantry.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.