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WTO Puts Internet Taxes on Hold
dafunn writes "CNet is reporting that the WTO is in agreement over extending the current Net tax ban for another 18 to 24 months. I don't know how long this will last, but it looks like temporary good news for e-commerce in general. The story is availible online. "
Does this mean that my P0RN has been deregulated? Now all nations in every continent belonging to the WTO can have a fair shot at exporting their P0RN. Hmm. I wonder if the US porn industry would support a tariff on overseas electronic commerce (hard to enforce). The US industry could advocate sanctions cause they use child labor.
Instead, the reasons are almost unanimously to continue to entice and encourage more people to use the internet for purchases. Once they are satisfied that Internet purchases have become a way-of-life, as ingrained as handing a credit card over for every purchase at the local convenience store, the taxes will be ushered forth by a rush of oinking pigs, eager to pillage your pocket on every transaction.
Yes, there are various reasons for and against taxing Internet transactions, but I'm speaking only to the reasoning behind the current hype over not taxing. It's temporary -- and it is for the best interest of all governments. Don't be lulled into believing that they really are interested in simple free-trade and uninhibited capitalism and entrepreneurship.
Proposed delays are in the best interest of those who wish taxing (even heavy taxing) of the Internet.
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seumas.com
Ohhh, thank you WTO, that was generous of you.
I'm glad that a governing body that has no right at all to tell ANY of us what to do (and was not voted in by us) has decided to be nice for a little while. I mean they could decide to charge a %50 tax on E-commerce and what could we do about it? Nothing, we are just little serfs.
I'd like to see the US just say "fuck off" to the UN, WTO, and any other pseudo-government that decides it knows how to run a country better than said country's government. None of these orgs have the US's best interest in mind, nor were they delegated by a democratic vote, so why the hell would we take these idiots seriously?
I have a feeling these riots are just the tip of the iceberg. Soverign countries are not going to take kindly to some "world government" telling them what to do.
Finkployd
The problem is that nations don't want to get into the competition game. Once the economy is global, then nations need to compete against each other for the 'business' of multinational corporations ('business' being jobs, tax dollars, prestige, etc which help keep the citizenry happy enough to remain compliant and obedient). Like any competition, certain nations have certain advantages (natural resources, good government, educated people, deep water ports, affluent people, disciplined culture, infrastructure) over others, so those less-advantaged nations have to overcome those missing advantages by other means (dictatorial 'serf' labor, environmental hostility) when competing. Some businesses (consulting) don't care about low labor costs or environmental laissez-faire. Others (manufacturing, heavy industry, etc) may consider those criteria more important.
Where does government enter into this? Government decides the compromise between what its voters demand (high wages, good jobs, environmental protection, fair treatment of labor, etc) and what these companies demand (largely, the diametric opposite). The decisions made by governments are reflected in its trade policies.
Not that the government is correct, but that's the rationale IMHO.. The scary part is that, when compared, corporate demand is like the tortoise and popular demand is like the hare: slow and steady lobbying will almost always beat heated point-in-time (but mostly ephemeral) protests..
Your Working Boy,
Why should the internet be any different?
It shouldn't, and, as far as I know, it isn't.
Placing an order over the Internet is treated exactly the same way as any other mail order transaction. If I purchase something from outside my state, there is no sales tax. When I buy my TRGPro in January, I'll have to pay sales tax since they are in my state. And I'll have to pay that sales tax regardless of whether I phone my order in, drive the two blocks down the street to pick it up in person, or place my order through the web.
When you get right down to it, e-commerce is nothing new. It's basically just mail-order, we've been doing it for years, I mean, how long ago did the first Sears & Roebuck catalog come out? Calling it e-commerce just means that you're using this "new fangled Internet thingie-jigger" to let the company know that you want them to send you something. It's still no different than picking up the phone and ordering something from the Sears catalog. Frankly, I can see no reasone whatsoever why they think there needs to be a special tax on the sale just because you place your order through a web form instead of a phone call. (No reason other than blatant governmental greed, anyway.)
In the short term (at least) this is obviously a Good Thing. Perhaps this points to slow waning of government power. Since the WTO is mostly a collective unit of corporations, this agreement shouldn't be suprising. It's more money that we'll have to spend at the Big Corporation's new e-commerce web site. It almosts reminds me of the situation in cryptonomicon, where the main characters basically discovered that the governments were "scared shitless" by the data vault because it could affect their ability to collect taxes. I'm not saying typical governments are going away, but this is a very small step twords a powershift in favor of corporations.
Politicians finance their campaings with corporate money and in exchange they take care of corporate agenda's. The WTO is nothing but a multinationnal corporate mafia that has power OVER democraties.
I mean, this would be nice if The People could use it as an internationnal court to limit corporate misbehaviour but it turns out it's the other way around. The WTO is there so that corporations interests no longer need a govenment's aproval for anything they want to do.
The biggest INSULT to democraties is that the people who make decision at the WTO are chosen in totally arbitrary ways by the corporations themselves!!! Knowing this, can anyone say there is no Big Brother? This is even worse than an Imperialist state because it covers the whole damned planet. Ironically, who's "tax" money do you think is backing this up?
Without music, life would be an error.