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Senate Passes Bill Making Internet Tax Ban Permanent (consumerist.com)

Posted by timothy on from the note-that's-access-not-purchases dept.

kheldan writes: Nearly two decades ago, Congress passed the first Internet Tax Freedom Act, establishing that — with a handful of grandfathered exceptions — local, state, and federal governments couldn't impose taxes on Internet access. Problem is, that law has had to be renewed over and over, each time with an expiration date. But today, the U.S. Senate finally passed a piece of legislation that would make the tax ban permanent.

17 of 95 comments (clear)

  1. That's great by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Now we get to see what the Republican-controlled House does. Surely they hate taxes too...

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    1. Re:That's great by phantomfive · · Score: 3, Informative

      The senate is controlled by Republicans, too

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      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  2. Re: Bad idea to ban internet taxes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    I know it's /., but did you not even read the summary? This has nothing to do with good purchases online. This is only about taxing internet access.

  3. Re:Wait I thought we already were paying taxes by TypoNAM · · Score: 2

    This for banning taxes on internet service, not taxes related to purchasing goods over the internet.

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    This space is not for rent.
  4. "Permanent"? by mariox19 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    No Congress can pass a law that a subsequent Congress can't repeal. There is no such thing as "permanent."

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    quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.

    1. Re:"Permanent"? by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 5, Informative

      "Permanent" in context means that they don't have to keep renewing the law.

  5. Four more years for grandfathered states by SydShamino · · Score: 2

    According to TFA, states with existing taxes have four more years to phase them out. Why give some states even one more minute of special taxes that other states aren't allowed to impose?

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    It doesn't hurt to be nice.
  6. Re:Impact? by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 2

    No, because this has nothing to do with sales tax.

  7. How will the congressman from Amazon vote? by goombah99 · · Score: 2

    Why not tax the internet? I can see not taxing it when it was a fledging system but there's no technological or bussiness reason not to tax it. Even amazon is open to this.You can be against taxes but if were going to tax regular stores it makes sense to tax the internet.

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    1. Re:How will the congressman from Amazon vote? by Adriax · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Tax on the connection, not goods purchased using it.

      If you let them tax the connection you'd quickly get states and cities imposing either per user taxes or a per meg tax based on 1995 average webpage size and traffic statistics.
      If the ban had lapsed, you can bet the first words out of my city mayor's mouth would have been "email postage".

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      I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
    2. Re:How will the congressman from Amazon vote? by mysidia · · Score: 5, Informative

      Why not tax the internet? I can see not taxing it when it was a fledging system

      The internet connectivity is sometimes taxed through telecommunications taxes, particularly federal ones.

      The ban is on state/city taxation of network access.

      It prohibits things such as providers having to pay a "Franchise tax" for every city, discriminatory taxes, E.g. "LAN Tax per Port", "bit tax", "bandwidth tax", "Tax per E-mail message", "$0.05 per Instant message, Tweet, or Facebook update"

      The Tax Freedom act does not prohibit things such as Sales Tax on real or digital goods, and taxing the providers' profits.... Internet-based transactions are still subject to tax; it's the internet connectivity itself that is protected.

  8. Re:Internet service, not stores. by hackwrench · · Score: 3, Informative

    Various government agencies do collect tax on purchases made using the internet. This is just no tax on the connectivity provided by an ISP.

  9. Re: Bad idea to ban internet taxes by ravenspear · · Score: 2

    did you not even read the summary?

    You must be new here.

  10. Expiration date? by fustakrakich · · Score: 2

    All laws should have one. The entire government should have one. End the careerism

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    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  11. Cell phone service taxes by spork+invasion · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Forgive me if this is a stupid question. Lots of jurisdictions impose taxes on cell phone service. Where I live right now does so. I have LTE, in which everything (voice, texts, data) is sent as data. Essentially it's purely an internet connection. If Congress makes it illegal for anyone to tax internet access, wouldn't this also cover wireless services? For previous generations of wireless technology, it could be argued that the portions not sent as data were what was being taxed. That doesn't seem to be the case for LTE where it's all data. Unless there's some specific exemption for wireless services that I'm not aware of, shouldn't this mean that my city imposing a tax for cell phone services on me is illegal under federal law?

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  12. Re:well, until it's amended. by sumdumass · · Score: 2

    I think the idea behind calling it permanent was that it remains law without any further action from congress as opposed to sun setting and needing renewed.

    But yes. I thought the same thing. No law or constitutional provision is permanent in the strict sense because after some arbitrary time in the 1800s, it can all be amended.

  13. Chicago's Internet Tax by h4ck7h3p14n37 · · Score: 2

    Chicago introduced a tax last summer on streaming and cloud-based services.

    http://www.theverge.com/2015/7...