Internet Tax Imminent? 505
jhigh writes "Proposals to tax the Internet are gaining steam as state legislators see a giant pot of money just waiting to be dipped into. "At the moment, states and municipalities are frequently barred by federal law from collecting both access and sales taxes. But they're hoping that their new lobbying effort, coordinated by groups including the National Governors Association, will pay off by permitting them to collect billions of dollars in new revenue by next year.""
Good (Score:1, Insightful)
Wrong. (Score:3, Insightful)
Taxes are already everywhere. Why more? (Score:5, Insightful)
My ISP pays the owner of lines they lease. The line owner pays taxes on their revenue. Does that not count?
My ISP pays other ISP's in access agreements. They all pay taxes. Does that not count?
The service providers make revenue. They pay taxes on the revenue. Does that not count?
On top of the services there are advertisers. They make revenues and pay taxes. Does that not count?
It seems to me the whole system is already covered.
When is the tea party?
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
I think given the choice of ordering from Ottawa, and ordering from Hong Kong, I'd rather order from Ottawa given the selection, price, and reputation are up to it. I doubt I'm alone in this thought process.
Tom
Re:Where have I seen this before? (Score:3, Insightful)
Still, I think that an internet tax is a pretty stupid idea; it'll make municipal wifi harder to do because the taxes would have to be added to the general burden, which people wouldn't like. Not to mention that it'll disproportionately hit the poorer members of society (in proportion of income terms), which makes the tax seem pretty unjust... Although it will give your congress a good opportunity to draw in billions extra which will almost certainly be wasted...
Scary (Score:5, Insightful)
If they're taxing the tubes, does any commerce that goes through them get marked up, thus hiking prices for the consumer? I mean, fantastic, well done Uncle Sam - you've discovered a new and massive source of revenue, which incidentally buggers a large and growing element in your economy! Way to combat the national debt and fight the next dotcom bubble-burst.
And, more importantly, I'd like to know how this affects other countries. How many key internet services are run from or through the US? ICANN, DNS etc... all this and net-neutrality too. Why does the world seem slightly more fucked up every time you get up in the morning?
Sorry, I'm done. You can mod me down now.
Re:Wrong. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Wrong. (Score:0, Insightful)
YES! (Score:5, Insightful)
33% of every work week is worked just to pay the big 3 in taxes. I wonder what it is when you factor in all the above (and anything I missed). At some point something as got to give.
Re:Where have I seen this before? (Score:5, Insightful)
Same great article, now less filling!
But seriously, we can laugh now, but I wouldn't put this past our government. They've passed worse (DMCA anyone?) The Internet needs to be kept free and international - belonging to no single nation. And that means no nation should be able to tax it.
Hooray for sales tax (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wrong. (Score:2, Insightful)
ooh, this is a favourite (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Good (Score:3, Insightful)
Like last night, I went to Zellers [Canadian ripoff of Walmart for all intents...]. They didn't have a SINGLE FAN in the entire store. It was 27C last night. The store stocks random assortments of "this and that" but rarely anything of substance. If the store wasn't a block from my house I'd never set foot in it. The nearest Walmart is a 5 min drive away. They at least have stock (for the most part) but they're limited to the most popular of items. And for little oddities like movies, soundtracks, music books, etc, I just gave up and order online.
It's so frustrating to not be interested in pop culture and try to shop around. Americans have it a little better, stores like [iirc] Fay's stock a good selection of CDs. Even managed to find some trance/techno [like DJ Tiesto, Armin Van Buuren, etc] which is unheard of in Canada.
Maybe if stores stopped cutting out the hardcore clients for the easy buck here and there they wouldn't lose out to online shoppers. I remember a time when I could get comp.sci books in Chapters. Now they're scarce and you have to order online (I use Amazon.ca out of spite, fuck you Chapters).
Tom
Re:No Surprise. (Score:2, Insightful)
Very upsetting to say the least.
Re:Good (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually I'd prefer that they just cut services. Or if they won't do that from the start, then fine, run up the sales tax, drive more sales onto the internet or into neighboring areas, wait for the local economy to collapse, and then cut services. I prefer the former path, but either one works.
There are a lot of states that haven't really been in a financial pinch in a while. This is unhealthy. You need some really lean years from time to time, so that you can actually make the hard decisions about what's worth spending money on and what's not.
I'm also a big fan of earmarking taxes for specific purposes, via referenda. If the voters approve a new tax for some specific purpose (e.g., we really need this new school, so we're going to tax x in order to pay for it), then that tax shouldn't be used for any other purpose. Once its original purpose is accomplished, the tax should evaporate.
Re:Wrong. (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh jesus help them , god , and baby jesus please help them.
They seem to be getting by up there fine.
Re:Wrong. (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides which, talking about military funding as a tax problem is a red herring. It's not an issue of insufficient revenue, it's a question of misplaced priorities. There's more than enough money to buy body armor, or up-armored vehicles, or whatever, for the military, in the budget, if people in Congress wanted to do it. They've just spent that money elsewhere, and decided not to pay for body armor. Giving them more money won't necessarily change that; I can't think of any reason why they wouldn't just keep doing that. If they've already shown that equipping our soldiers is a low priority, a few extra billion here and there isn't going to change that. They're going to squander it the same way they squander all the money they have now.
Re:Wrong. (Score:3, Insightful)
If the government provided shoes with taxpayer money, I swear to God, people like you would claim that without taxes nobody would have shoes.
The fact is that anything the government can pay for, you could pay for straight from your own pocket - and probably get a better deal.
Not the feds (Score:2, Insightful)
Now, I'm as much against having internet taxes as any respectable slashdotter, but don't blame the Feds, this is the states lobbying (and the democrats love of taxation), but it isn't going to pay for the war. BTW, this issue is the #1 reason I always vote republican. The Democrats haven't even been in power 1 year, and they're already going to screw the internet. Seriously, since the internet started to get big in 93-94, the Republicans have been in power in congress. It only takes the democrats 6 months in power to totally ruin it?!
If this goes through Amazon would have to have a moratorium on hiring programmers, and they'd have to halt any new features they are working on. They'd have to hire as many accountants as they would normally programmers, and put all their coders to work implementing the new tax collection system on behalf of all the state and local governments. At least in the state I live in, depending on where you sell a product, you could be responsible to collect state, county, and municipality sales taxes all individually. You then have to file a tax return with all 3 of the collecting bodies.
If Amazon is forced to do this, they will have to file > 10,000 tax returns every quarter, lots of fun! And you get the added bonus that most state and local tax collection bodies have no electronic filing for sales tax, no way to automate the process. It is manually printing out a form and mailing it, or maybe if you're lucky faxing it, but either way, its 10,000 tax returns that a person has to physically handle.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Thank you, my luddite friend.
Internet retailers are more efficient and usually pay their employees more than local businesses. They require fewer employees and serve more customers.
The thing is: The middleman shouldn't exist in the first place, if you think about it. The internet has middlemen competing and makes their role in the process less and less prevalent.
I used to work for one. I made 20% more than the average best buy employee starting, and I had nothing more than a high school diploma. I worked my way up to supervisor and could have even had health benefits if I had actually been full time. The place I worked for, in spite of all this, pays its employees less than most warehouses.
This new tax will help some local businesses. However, for the most part, the internet will continue to replace these businesses even on a 'level playing field'.
And on a slightly less related note: Is anyone else annoyed that the government pursues any possible source of revenue? People do not want to pay taxes, and the government makes more than enough money to do everything it should be doing. The solution to the budgetary crises across the US should be obvious: Cut spending. I guess it's a lot harder to shrink government than to steal more money from the people. Sales taxes are especially bad because they disproportionately tax the poor (poor pay a higher % of their income to a sales tax than others do).
We are already taxed (Score:3, Insightful)
If the government really wanted to put a per-use tax on services like the Internet or e-mail...then they have to completely overhaul how we pay for the service in the first place (which again, is ALREADY taxed).
Re:Wrong. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not really in favor of "have the state provide for everything", but there are a few essential key liabilities that a state is here for.
Re:Wrong. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No, you're wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
A few points in response:
First, while the F-22 by itself may be only a small issue, it is a symptom of a much greater ailment. For another example, look at the Seawolf class submarines. They cost nearly a billion dollars each and were also designed to meet a threat that no longer exists. The design was hastily retrofitted to allow for the placement of special forces troops, but that doesn't change the fact that the submarine is a white elephant that could be replaced by something cheaper.
Second, the military budget is huge. 2% of a very large number is still a very large number. Each F-22 costs ~$200 million. That money could outfit a significant number of troops with better body armor and more heavily armored vehicles.
Third, what is the overall cost of maintenance of these new toys? The stealth coatings and advanced avionics used in modern jets could conceivably require more maintenance and upgrades in the long term, nullifying the effects of being able to retire outdated aircraft.
Re:Wrong. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Good (Score:3, Insightful)
Two possibilities here....
Re:Good (Score:3, Insightful)
They'll still win. The state will just get its (un)fair cut of the transaction.
Online, I can search for exactly what I want, find a few highly rated variants of that product, and pull up the specs on each in seconds. I can search for negative reviews about them to see if they look good on paper but don't live up to expectations. I can then "shop around" to get a good price (even repeating the "negative reviews" check for the vendor I choose, if I've never dealt with them before) and place my order.
I can do all of that it considerably less time than it would take me to drive to a local store, find the general type of product I want, settle for one of the three models they carry with no information beyond what the box says, and check-out with no idea of what this product sells for elsewhere (or I can waste even more time by visiting a few other stores, on the unlikely chance they carry the exact same model).
And I don't need to deal with traffic. I don't need to deal with annoying salespeople. I don't need to deal with crowds, or for that matter any other customers with their strange smells and who-knows-what contagious diseases (don't mothers still teach people to cover their damned mouths when coughing?). And most delightfully, I don't need to tell the cashier where to stick their extended warranty.
Yeah, "level playing field"... Suuuuure.
Re:No, you're wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
Seawolf class is designed to be able to project power.
The cheaper diesel littoral craft and subs do not project power.
Sure, the Chinese are tough, but only in their little corner of the world.
Seawolf is tough everywhere. That's the difference.
If you want to argue that the US should not be interfering with other countries then go ahead. But, when that happens get used to skyrocketing prices (we can no longer protect our cheap suppliers) and shortages of all sorts of stuff (when some other tinpot local decides to mess with our supplies).
Government taking care of people (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, for one thing, there are the ethical implications of not doing so. Believe it or not, there are people in our society who cannot take care of themselves through no fault of their own. Why should we allow people to needlessly suffer and die when we have it within our means to not?
For another, ethical concerns aside, we as a society have a vested interest in making sure that our population is a healthy and productive one. If some members of it aren't, we should do what we can—for the sake of ourselves, if for no other reason, since we also benefit from their future productivity—to ensure that they have a chance to become so again.
Now, I know what you're thinking, that everyone on welfare and other government programs are leeches sucking off the teat of our hard-earned pay. And yes, there are a few people out there like that. But as weird as it may seem, the vast majority of people on government programs don't want to be. They'd love to be in the middle class, or even wealthy.
The problem is that most of these people either 1) don't know how to do so, or 2) have gotten so depressed with a society that systematically prevents them from making more of themselves because everyone is so damned greedy that they figure it's not worth their time and effort. They figure that they'll just end up right where they are now, just shorter of breath and one day closer to death. What's sad is that we as a country used to not be so much this way, but that these people are for the most part correct now.
Do I think that government is doing a spectacular job of helping people to help themselves? No, because it's become rather corrupt with greedy bastards who don't really care about you or me and just want to enjoy the lavish lifestyle of a Congressman. But do I think that one of the reasons government exists is to provide for the general welfare of society by doing things like providing assistance to those who need it? Yes, I most wholeheartedly do.
Maybe the wrong people are complaining though (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Billions of dollars in taxes? (Score:3, Insightful)
You're joking, right? Every dollar I spend at retail goes through at least three rounds of taxation: federal income tax, state income tax, and sales tax. And God help me if I manage to save one of my twice-taxed salary dollars, rather than spend it immediately; the interest I earn is taxed by the same gang of thieves all over again.
Re:Wrong. (Score:4, Insightful)