say no to internet tax

[diglife]

You guys might want to drop an line too

http://www.cornyn.senate.gov/contact/index.html
http://www.hutchison.senate.gov/e-mail.htm
saying no to internet tax :O)

Pass it on (especially if your from Texas)

what internet tax?

[kit'n]

im guessing he's talking about the new state tax proposals to bring in money for schools. one of the things that's in the proposal to be taxed is isp's... or telecommunications... or something like that. there was an article in the paper today about the new tax proposals and they mentioned internet couple times but didnt explain that portion very thoroughly.


but then... he mentioned the "esp if your from texas" part.. so was he talking something federal (since he insinuated that people outside of tx should write)?? i dunno. i just made a guess cuz i had just read the paper.

[Adam D]

no

[diglife]

Here is a link to the article
http://tech.msn.com/?GT1=3190

[Adam D]

The whole idea is stupid to me.

Various people and groups have been talking about this for probably 10 years now. Nothing ever really comes of it.

I thought it was a reference to the fake "email tax" story that's floated around for years.

[johnny861]

That's going to be a hard proposal to get through...


Lawmakers having trying for years to figure out ways to tax the internet....


Personally, I believe basic internet access should be a free service for all... I'm talking about something cost effective, be it dial-up or another basic method for internet connectivity....

By that line, I believe basic phone service should be available at little or no charge....


electricity and water, those are harder for me to say...

While I agree those should be fundamental services to people, if you offer those services for free, you risk losing energy conservation without paying penalties, (be it higher utility bills, etc)...

Bush is trying to pass a bill making it impossible to tax broadband service. He says he wants everyone to have at least a broadband connection by 2007 and he is supposedly taking steps to make it more affordable.

http://wb33.trb.com/news/la-na-bush27apr27.story

But in regards to your article, diglife, it doesn't look like they're trying to tax the whole internet anyway. They are just trying to tax people who use the internet to make free long distance phone calls. It sounds ridiculous but it might be necessary. You have to imagine all the businesses that used to use the phone company to make those long distance calls. But now all of a sudden they are using the internet to make those calls for free. Thats a huge blow to the phone companies considering that a huge percentage of businesses are using VoIP now. Not to mention all those taxes they WOULD HAVE paid if they used the phone company. Big business is making a killing and you don't benefit from it. I say let 'em tax it.

As for "...opening the door to a wide range of new telecommunications taxes", I doubt that normal internet users will ever have to worry about it.