Florida Proposes Taxing Local LANs 637
Vellmont writes "From the state that brought you the 2000 presidential election debacle, now comes the proposal to tax your LAN. The Orlando Business Journal is reporting that the the state of Florida is thinking about putting a 9% tax on LANs within the state. Exactly what they will be taxing isn't clear, since the tax amounts to 9% of... something. Will taxing the electrical wires within your home be next?"
Oh yes, politicians understand technology... (Score:5, Insightful)
(Idiotic laws/implementation is part of why SCO is trying to pull off crazy moves)
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I hear there are two types of people in Florida... Really really old people, and their parents.
+1 for good karma, love for the DMCA, SCO, and low user id.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Tax on purchase? (Score:3, Insightful)
What I don't understand is why this would be treated differently than buying desktop organizers or office chairs.
Morons.
Maybe I'm missing something, but (Score:2, Insightful)
Misses the point of communications taxes... (Score:5, Insightful)
Get with the program people... sounds as wacky as Seattle's proposed tax on espresso!
MadCow.
Taxing LANs? (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe this will involve RIAA-style math (Score:5, Insightful)
I can see the headlines now. "Joseph McMurphy has been artrested in Altamonte Springs, Florida, for allegedly possessing the equivalent of 6 Internet servers without paying network wiring taxes. This amount, roughly equivalent to 60 small Web sites or 600 personal sites......."
Fantastic idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Great! (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be so nice if people would read the actual article. (Yes, I realize the above was a joke.) Here's the vital line:
Computer networks would be taxed at that percent on either annual lease payments or depreciation.
What they're talking about, in nine cases out of ten, would be taxing equipment depreciation. (I assume that they're referring to dedicated WAN lines when they talk about annual lease payments, since I don't know anyone who leases LANs.)
What's really boneheaded about this is that LANs are so cheap, even for relatively large LANs, that equipment expenses are more likely to be written off as capital expense rather than being depreciated over time. Even then -- since annual depreciation is usually defined by tax codes -- most LANs would last well beyond their depreciation period, resulting in an exemption from further taxation.
What'll be interesting to see is how they define what a LAN actually is. Hubs, routers, switches, and spools of CAT-5 or coax, sure, but will they be including NICs -- which are arguably part of the PC rather than the network proper -- or network operating systems?
The worst part is that this won't be a good source of revenue, but will impose considerable expense on businesses to comply with the reporting requirements.
Here's a good reason WHY this is being attempted. (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Outsourcing jobs overseas = massive amounts of lost taxes for USA. Since IT jobs were hit the hardest and California was the hottest IT area, it doesn't take a genius to figure out one substantial reason why they're in a budget crisis (which is a taste of things to come for our federal budget).
2. Huge tax cuts without requirements on how it should be spent = lost tax revenues that might not be spent at all or spent in ways that improve the economy. This is kinda like giving a total stranger $100K and expecting him to spend it in ways that help you while not giving him any expectations on how to spend it (i.e. he can spend it all on building offshore infrastructure to move even more US jobs overseas!).
3. Our president's failure to build consensus in the UN to attack Iraq and then being exposed for making false justification statements means that other countries are less willing to send their young soldiers to die in Iraq. This means more of OUR taxes going to pay for this ongoing fiasco which will likely INCREASE the odds of future terrorist attacks & boycotts against US-made products.
4. and so on including our mounting budget deficit which is like running up a huge credit card bill with mounting interest that YOU and I must pay later with...you guessed it--more freaking taxes than EVER given the aging demographics of babyboomers and their impact on social security, medicare and reduced collection of income taxes from them as they retire.
NOTE: $100K is roughly how much VP. Cheney will save in taxes in one year due to the Bush tax cuts. Since that money has to come from somewhere, many of our brave soldiers sacrificing their lives in Iraq will receive PAY CUTS of around $200/month.
Don't be surprised if you find important services like public schools and homeland security facing massive budget cuts in the future--it doesn't HAVE to happen but I don't see a way out if we continue managing our government in the most idiotic way I've seen in decades.
I feel sorry for the poor soul who'll get elected as our president next because he's gonna have an almost impossible task on his hands (he'll need to take massive and very unpopular action to fix this mess being created by the current politicians).
Re:Maybe I have missed somthing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Where do you live?
Around here, when we were first permitted to get to the Internet via a phone line, there was already a tax on every phone bill. Then the cable folks supplied Internet service, and part of every cable bill is a tax. I've bought a few wires (thin ethernet first, then the hub that the vendors have forced on us for the last few years, all to connect a few home computers, and part of every purchase is a tax.
We need electricity to run our computers, and part of every electric bill is - you guessed it - a tax.
So what they're talking about is a special, higher tax for those of us on the Net. Every little bit of the net has been taxed right from the start; they just want networks taxed even higher than any other sort of comm or power equipment.
Re:Jeb (Score:3, Insightful)
It's been taxed several times. (Score:5, Insightful)
This reminds me of the bizarre logic that was used by advocates of the 'Intangibles' tax we collect here in KS. They said that if you invested your money in farm land
you'd pay property taxes on it, but if you just put it in the bank and 'clipped coupons' you don't pay them, so it's only fair to tax intangibles too.This reasoning completely ignores the fact that the capital that your investment goes to is already subject to property tax, and taxing intanbibles qua intangibles is double taxation, just as taxing computer networks is as well.
Before anyone clicks on the Reply to This link to pipe up that it's double taxation on the telcos too... yes, it is. It's an extra tax they pay in exchange for having a government-mandated monopoly. They pass that tax along to their captive customer base, which is oblivious to the fact that businesses don't pay taxes, they collect them.
Re:Here's a good reason WHY this is being attempte (Score:5, Insightful)
Good point. The only solution is a 100 per cent flat tax rate. Clearly, the only organization that can spend money wisely is the government.
While we're at it, if we can't trust the people to spend money wisely, why can we trust them to pick the government? We should also close the "voting loophole".
Re:Fark says it best... (Score:5, Insightful)
Communications has traditionally been (in the US and elsewhere) quite regulated. The reasons are logical in general, he who has the wires, holds a monopoly. People who have monopolies are dangerous to consumers. I agree with that, in fact I think all monopolies are dangerous and inherently bad for a country and the gov't should sponsor competitors to monopolies wherever possible. But I digress.
There is a common misconception that ALL communications is thus monopoly like, and subject to regulation. They try to do this with VOIP, internet traffic etc. They have lost site of the INTENTION of regulation, which is to protect consumers against dangerous monopolies. This is exagerrated by regulated monopolies (telco's, cable co's etc) which would be forced to compete with cheaper alternatives. They fuel the fire and confuse the issues. VoIP for example is a major annoyance to telco's at the moment, as it might allow cable companies (for example) to deliver voice service without the normal federal regulation. This is ridiculous of course, and spoken by people who know better and wish to hide the fact that almost EVERY wired network connection in the world is regulated by at least one gov't agency, and the cost of regulation is passed on to the buyer. The internet (not that I'd necessary use this for business class VOIP mind you) is just as much subject to regulation as anything else. The issue here is that you're not paying $24/month on phone service in addition to your data. So these groups are constantly lobbying any politician who will listen about how unfair things are. A politicians education on many issues may consist ONLY of parties interested in changing something, and regrettebly money plays a lot into who he listens to most.
Politicians on the other hand are given the unenviable job of solving various government crises with the tools at their disposal. They can solve financial problems by cutting or taxing. If they choose to cut, they must select something to cut, and face public wrath. If they choose to tax they must face the wrath only of the public affected. So this relatively creative guy (ignorant perhaps) decided he's going to tax "LANs". How many people have LANs? Few individuals. Those individuals use them at work probably, but hey, that's someone elses pocket. So now he fixes a financial snafu AND pleases a local telco. The public won't argue, he probably gets some in pocket, this is a winner, right?
I love how impassioned politicians get during their campaigns about ideals and visions. Democrats and Republicans argue about the most inane things and come off sounding as if they are opposite poles of the universe. Whoever gets elected usually pulls one or two publicity stunts to show the world how he follows his ideal and spends most of his time with it. Simultaneously the ideal falls by the wayside on every other issue in the interests of time, image and greed. I'm not saying I believe they're all evil like satan, but most of their actions can be understood.
Somehow it's up to us to fix this, but how....
Re:Greedy government. (Score:3, Insightful)
You really think that?
I've not seen one Republican placed in power (not since Reagan anyway) who even gave LIP SERVICE to ROLLING BACK government in size and power.
When all's said and done, the Democrats will grow government in size and power 10% per year. Republicans 7%. Whoop de doo!
Only ONE party has a platform based on rolling back government to it's LEGAL level (ie: Constitution, getting rid of ALL functions and powers not expressely granted or amended into the Constitution), and that's the Libertarians.
A tiny minority party, sadly. But the only one that resembles what the Founders believed in.
Many regulations solve real problems (Score:5, Insightful)
The bottom line is if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck and is being baked with an orange glaze and served to hungry diners, it's a duck. Paypal is a bank and the sooner it is treated as one the better off everyone will be -- too many people have been burned by arbitrary and opaque dispute resolution policies. VoIP that replaces conventional phone service *is* phone service and the users need to have the same protections (e.g., against unauthorized wiretaps, arbitrary charge dispute resolutions, etc.) as regular phone service users, etc.
Re:Here's a good reason WHY this is being attempte (Score:3, Insightful)
2. Thank you for saying the goverment can spend *MY* money better than me. Its *MY* money that goes for those taxes. It never was the goverments in the first place. *I* am the one that earned it NOT them. I know dozens of people that used that money for exactly what it was put forth for, their children. They bought them new computers, cloths, and other things. All because they got 600 bucks they spent 1500 bucks. Oh yes that SLOWED the economy way down didnt it. Belive it or not the stock market is not the only indicator of what its like. 98-99 were a economic anomoly. The market is snapping back to where it should be. It is almost there if not already. Before the '.com bubble' unenployment was at 5-6%, and that was under your beloved clinton. He set in motion some of the largest company catastrophies EVER. By letting the SEC just ignor out and out fraud.
3. We set into motion that fiasco. We should end it. Show some responsiblity. All because we wanted some missle bases in Iran. When Iran went, Iraq helped us out. When we should have told them to get bent.
4. Do you know ANYTHING about economics? Did you know that money is actually keeping our economy afloat? Its called macro economics buddy. It helps smooth out the rough spots in the economy. When times are good we pay down. When times are bad we borrow money. If they had not borrowed that money what do you think this recession would have been really like? It would have been huge. There is only one way to get a balanced budget. That is to write your senator and tell him so. Everyone do it right now, it is a good thing to have.
Note: 500-1000 dollars for a 4 person family is HUGE. It means the dfference between buying new cloths or just using the wornout ones from last year.
Massive cuts are the ONLY way to balance the budget. The goverment grows at 4% instead of 8% and they call it a budget cut. That is double talk. Do not let them fool you into thinking they are the only ones that can help you. When was the last time you REALLY got help from the goverment? Those 'social' programs are a sham. They are so full of bored people that could care less, and full of such accounting fraud it would make enron look like econ 101. I see a VERY different goverment than you. They need less money. But he with the printers can make more...
See the real problem? You want to give them more money. If they do not get it they will make it up. They will do it the whole time saying its 'for the children'. Meanwhile they are PISSING money away.
Re:Maybe I have missed somthing... (Score:5, Insightful)
'Oh, so they have the internet on computers now do they?'
I think that quote about sums up this plan.
Re:Maybe I have missed somthing... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:GEORGE W. BUSH IS NOT A TEXAN! (Score:1, Insightful)
Living in Fl and understanding the climate... (Score:1, Insightful)
That would reinvent bracket creep. (Score:3, Insightful)
- a MIPS tax, socking it to the rich suckers who can afford that top-of-the-line processor (sort of a PC SUV tax)
That would reinvent Bracket creep:
Remember that the progressive income tax was pushed through on the "soak the rich" principle.
At first there was a floor below which you didn't pay, so only the rich pay any income tax. Then brackets were invented, so only the rich would pay killer rates but the Fed would tax the middle class a little bit, too.
But then the government started running the printing presses to pay for its programs by inflating the currency. And gradually a dollar would buy progressively less. But there were progressively more of 'em circulating. So you got a "raise" that put you back where you were, with more dollars but about the same purchasing power.
Except it wasn't, really. Because the tax brackets were denominated in dollars, with no index to inflation. So middle income, and then lower income, and pretty soon just about any above-the-poverty-line income was pushed into those "soak the rich" tax brackets.
Oops!
Your (tongue-in-cheek) proposal would do the same, thanks to Moore's Law inflation of CPU speed. (Run the same apps on a newer machine and the processor just spins more in the idle loop - but you pay for that spin.)
Communication Taxes (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Fark says it best... (Score:3, Insightful)
Interesting, since in Ontario it was decriminilized so more money could be made. Before you'd have to pay to house someone in jail, now they just have to collect the fine.
If it were legal, it could be taxed like alcohol and cigarettes, so again that would be a bonus for the government. Now companies that make synthetic alternatives stand to lose something, but hemp (it lacks THC) is already legal in many places.
So who exactly profits from marijuana being illegal? No one the government would care about.
I live in Orlando, and I'm totally stumped (Score:3, Insightful)
"Most of Florida communications case law stems from the rotary dial era," saith the article. OK, so to my layman's brain, that sounds like "Our case law is old, so we need to do some crazy think to generate more court activity so we can update our case law." Kind of like "throw some shit at the wall and hope some sticks." Am I on the right track here?
"'The standard response is on the border between surprise and outrage,' says Arthur Simon, senior vice president of big-business lobby Associated Industries of Florida."
Aha, big business is against higher taxes. (Makes sense.) Finafuckingly, our Disney lobbyists will do something worthwhile by figting this. I'll bet the Mouse has a pretty big fscking LAN. Remember, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
"'What did surprise the business community was the extent and reach of the rule,' says the lobbyist."
In 2003, a LAN tax is akin to a breathing tax. Like they said in the article, "Practically any office with two computers will have a local area network."
Oh well. I'll have to see how this one goes. As long as we don't have to vote on it, I think we'll come through OK.
take the red pill (Score:4, Insightful)
What else are they talking about? Clearly they are not talking about taxing the flow of electric current, otherwise they would tax your extension cord by length for every year you have it hanging in the garage. But you take that same copper wire in a different form factor and with a certain number of twists per foot, those same electrons modulated in a particular way, and now you have something new you can tax. That is a very interesting transition.
There is a peculiar kind of mind at work here. It's almost exactly the same mind working in the shadowy deeps at SCO, and in Redmond, and in government agencies across the country. It is a business mind only superficially. More specifically, it is the mind bent on control.
I am not a revolutionary. I probably should be and when I was younger I might have been but these days I don't have time for it. But I can sense when someone is making a move on me and the things I hold to be important, and this is one of those times. The hair on the back of my neck starts to rise and I stop configuring the firewall and I sit back and I think.
We are in for a rough ride, I'm afraid. The authorities have arrived. Between the RIAA and the FBI and the bean counters and Microsoft it is getting uncomfortable to be where we are, doing what we are doing, in the way we are doing it and have done it for decades. We are not domesticated enough, not cowed. They cannot control this, any of it, and it worries them endlessly. There is no business model for cattle that won't stay in their pen. But there are plenty of professionals who can round up your cattle for you, for a fee. And then to the factory.
Do the cows in the feedlot know where they are headed? They have had an easy life, haven't they. Grown fat and complacent. Did the jump-over-the-fence thing once, got hit with a prod, gave it up after that. The grass wasn't really all that much better on the other side anyway. Do the cattle ever stop to wonder about that day? And about the fence? About why it was so important to stay behind the fence?
Here we are grazing the tall green grass, belly deep and well pleased, and the herders have noticed we're out. Feel the first shock of the prod...hear the order to move out...what are you going to do...
Re:Maybe I have missed somthing... (Score:2, Insightful)
Just a 21st Century Window Tax (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I think taxation should be directly related to the public cost for the item or activity. For instance, having a home means that you make police, fire, schools, prisons, water service, etc. necessary. So tax a home based upon the costs incurred to support these things. Tax a vehicle based on the costs needed to maintain the roads -- i.e., wear and tear on the roads. Tax pollution and garbage.
The things that seem the most unjust are the taxes which are completely disconnected from the use of the tax money. A tax on LANs is ridiculous because there is no reason to think that it costs the state any money for you to have one -- the public incurs no costs to support your LAN. In addition, LANs are things that are needed by people and businesses. So, like windows and hearths, it seems even worse that the state is collecting taxes on them because they know people cannot live without them. It makes you feel very powerless at the hands of the state.
Re:Maybe I'm missing something, but (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Fark says it best... (Score:3, Insightful)
Since government doesn't generate it's own revenue through voluntary trade but simply takes it from the people who do, the concept of loss (and investment for that matter) is virtually non-existent. Even a total failure of government (drug prohibition to cite an obvious example) increases the "value" of the business at large. The people lose, but government still wins.
With that, it's no coincidence that government has a general tendency to expand it's powers (and cost) over time. How many hundreds of times more expensive and more powerful is the US government today than it was 200 years ago?
Re:Fark says it best... (Score:3, Insightful)