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FCC Panel Wants To Tax Internet-Using Businesses, Give the Money To ISPs (arstechnica.com)
The FCC's Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee (BDAC), which includes members like AT&T, Comcast, Google Fiber, Sprint, and other ISPs and industry representatives, is proposing a tax on websites to pay for rural broadband. Ars Technica reports: If adopted by states, the recommended tax would apply to subscription-based retail services that require Internet access, such as Netflix, and to advertising-supported services that use the Internet, such as Google and Facebook. The tax would also apply to any small- or medium-sized business that charges subscription fees for online services or uses online advertising. The tax would also apply to any provider of broadband access, such as cable or wireless operators. The collected money would go into state rural broadband deployment funds that would help bring faster Internet access to sparsely populated areas. Similar universal service fees are already assessed on landline phone service and mobile phone service nationwide. Those phone fees contribute to federal programs such as the FCC's Connect America Fund, which pays AT&T and other carriers to deploy broadband in rural areas.
The BDAC tax proposal is part of a "State Model Code for Accelerating Broadband Infrastructure Deployment and Investment." Once finalized by the BDAC, each state would have the option of adopting the code. An AT&T executive who is on the FCC advisory committee argued that the recommended tax should apply even more broadly, to any business that benefits financially from broadband access in any way. The committee ultimately adopted a slightly more narrow recommendation that would apply the tax to subscription services and advertising-supported services only. The BDAC model code doesn't need approval from FCC commissioners -- "it is adopted by the BDAC as a model code for the states to use, at their discretion," Ajit Pai's spokesperson told Ars. As for how big the proposed taxes would be, the model code says that states "shall determine the appropriate State Universal Service assessment methodology and rate consistent with federal law and FCC policy."
The BDAC tax proposal is part of a "State Model Code for Accelerating Broadband Infrastructure Deployment and Investment." Once finalized by the BDAC, each state would have the option of adopting the code. An AT&T executive who is on the FCC advisory committee argued that the recommended tax should apply even more broadly, to any business that benefits financially from broadband access in any way. The committee ultimately adopted a slightly more narrow recommendation that would apply the tax to subscription services and advertising-supported services only. The BDAC model code doesn't need approval from FCC commissioners -- "it is adopted by the BDAC as a model code for the states to use, at their discretion," Ajit Pai's spokesperson told Ars. As for how big the proposed taxes would be, the model code says that states "shall determine the appropriate State Universal Service assessment methodology and rate consistent with federal law and FCC policy."
And Facebook and Twitter is pushing to have phone taxed so that people will use their messaging and VOIP services.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
It has to be at the state level. A federal tax would violate the tax and spending Uniformity Clause of the United States Constitution.
This is, of course, assuming anyone still cares what the Constitution says.
...in infrastructure projects like this one, right?
Well, you got net neutrality overturned. So go invest in that infrastructure now... Oh wait, you don't want to pay for it now. What's your lame-ass excuse now?
You lying, greedy, ******* bastards.
For those who do not know, the owner of a business can not make a claim on the business workers comp policy. i was required by the government(over sight and regulations) to buy Insurance I could never make a claim on.
This Pai jerk needs to go. Very soon.
You know what FCC just did? They just declared SMS to be an "information service" like internet, as opposed to communication.
That means now carriers can now choose to slow down, time-delay, or even block SMS any time they want.
Isn't pornhub mainly located in Canada? Montreal, specifically. But in any case, that also goes to show that moving out of the USA would probably be a trivial matter.