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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."
We're letting *AT&T, Comcast, Google Fiber, Sprint, and other ISPs and industry representatives* write our tax code. I guess it's better than letting Enron, Exxon, and DuPont write them... Oh wait, they probably do
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Because you haven't given ISPs enough ways to screw the consumer and make money already? Unbelievable.
who tend to vote for them. Not that I mind rural communities getting the Internet, but not like this. Make it municipal broad bank. A country just did it for about $5 bucks a month. Verizon got billions of my money to build out rural fiber, kept the money and never did the work.
No more. Fund municipal broadband out of the General fund or tell the fuckers to fuck off. All this does is charge me $5 bucks a month (I pay for business class at home) for free money in AT&Ts hands.
Once again, we've got an election in 2 years. Show up at your primary and vote the fuckers out. Then show up at the general and put some real pro-consumer folks in. We had plenty of them in the primary in 2018 but so few showed up for the primary that most of these yahoo incumbents survived. Again, no more. Primary them and then vote in pro-worker and pro-consumer reps who refuse corporate PAC money.
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Since "Internet-using" companies already pay their ISPs for access and bandwidth, like everyone else does, perhaps the ISPs could take some their -- what do you call them, ah, yes -- enormous profits and use them to build rural infrastructure all on their own. Sure, perhaps the ROI / profits from that won't be enough to list under the "Rape and Pillage" section of the quarterly reports, but maybe people will hate ISPs a little less -- except, obviously, for Comcast. :-)
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
it's like giving the gas tax to private toll roads and no they will not be made into free roads.
You're already paying the fuckers! CenturyLink is being paid $500 MILLION in tax money yearly for rural broadband expansion and they're only using it to cover areas that someone else covers already so they can stifle competition, completely ignoring unserved areas. The rationale behind municipal broadband bans is that it's unfair to compete with the government because they have tax authority, yet they gladly take tax money and use it to be anti-competitive. NO MORE TAX MONEY TO BIG ISPs!
They can't tax Internet use. It's literally against the law.
But don't let that stand in the way of FCC announcing to the country how totally, utterly and completely corrupt they are.
You don't understand: big companies have money. The job of the government is to tax all the things. Europe has been far less shy about blatantly inventing reasons to take billions from companies.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Europe has universal healthcare, national daycare, welfare etc. Capitalism and Socialism are like fire: A little bit keeps you warm, a lot kills you.
They're not going to get squat, but the GOP will get a photo op where they tell them they're gonna get Internet and the propaganda news outlets they watch will trumpet that. Then when the Internet never materializes they'll blame it on tax and spend liberals' job killing regulations.
Keep in mind I'm not necessarily blaming the Rural folks for falling for this crap. The big reason I want them to have internet is so they can stop watching cable and over air TV and get out of the propaganda bubble their in. I think it would be great for the country as a whole. Those communities have massive hospital shortages and problems with clean drinking water. The American left (think the Bernie wing of the Democratic party) wants to solve those problems, but they keep losing elections to rural voters (who, thanks to the Senate, Electoral college and gerrymandering have about 40x the voting power of a city voter) keep shooting down attempts to help them.
If we could somehow get the message to them about how much the GOP is screwing them over we could fix just about everything.
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The rich people will just find ways to avoid paying the tax, or move elsewhere.
Taxes mostly hurt and poor and middle classes.
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