California Takes A Last Swing At VoIP

JamesB writes "News.com's Ben Charny reports that two California cities want to tax Internet telephony. This news comes on the eve of the FCC ruling on whether federal regulations will preempt local ones."

An alternative view

[bunyip]

While it's easy to say that we shouldn't tax this or tax that, I'm reminded of Ron Kirk, when he was mayor of Dallas, who quipped, "when you are sitting at home in your virtual world and you have a short circuit and a fire breaks out, do you want us to send a virtual fire truck or a real big red fire truck?" My house was hit by lightning last year and the city of Southlake was kind enough to send a real fire engine, not just email a JPG or something.

IMHO - we need an overhaul of the tax system, I don't believe that it can be efficient to have dozens of different entities with the power to levy taxes. There's a cost to society, although it does keep all those lawyers and accountants employed.

Re:VoIP calls are a terrible burden on Government!

[gl4ss]

**I think this is just a case of government seeing another opportunity to use people.**

yes, surely. but you see, when their taxes go down as you stop using a taxed service, they need to find extra income. they could tax the electricity more I suppose since that's used when you use voip or whatever, or they could tax you breathing, or tax you parking. it's just a political decision on who you tax the most(and as such 'luxury taxes' are popular, on alcohol, tobacco, etc, voip tax on businesses can be a way to focus taxation on companies that won't go broke even if taxed).

one thing is certain, they're going to tax you one way or another for enough money(resources) to fill their role(or fail doing so.. and well, you really don't want the administration to go bankrupt.. not exactly good for anyones business in the country..). if you don't live in a land of oppression you can affect which way the system goes through the political system if you don't like how it is - if you choose to not affect it then you pretty much just fucked yourself(or decided that you're too stupid to decide on such things). ...or perhaps you'd like the russian way of small 'tips' that goverment workers(police, militia, whatever with power) use instead of getting paid enough in salary to live, with massive gray-business(tax-evasion), huge corruption.

personally I prefer the 'big taxes, least corruption in the world' method.

Re:a little strange

[mister_tim]

Even in Australia, it is only relatively recently that the Commonwealth became the main collector of taxes. Like the US, Australia's constitution was primarily intended to protect the authority/power of the State's and limit the powers of the Federal Government. However, as time progressed, the power of the Federal Government grew and that of the state's diminshed, particularly when the Federal Government took responsibility for income tax from the States post-WW2.

Overall, the hierarchy of power is not as clear as you indicate. For example, look at education - primarily a state responsibility, but the Federal Government now controls universities and allocates funding for private schools as well. The lines of responsibility are not always clear-cut.

Re:Good luck, Arnold!

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people with VoIP don't pay by the minute.

For example, with Packet8, I pay $20/mo. That gives me UNLIMITED calls to the United States and Canada. How are they going to take a percentage of zero? If I make 10,000 minutes worth of calls, it's still zero cents per minute and even a 100% tax of zero is still zero. And they'd have a hard time justifying a tax on something that has nothing to do with the government.

THe idea of taxing something is, typically, that the something in question somehow incurs a cost or use to the government or public at large, yes? Gas tax because your car goes on the road. Phone tax because your phone companies are typically public utilities or us public accesses and such.

But what about VoIP? My VoIP goes over my cable connection, which are owned by my cable company. There is nothing public about my VoIP. The government has nothing to do with it. Taxing it would be silly. They have no business doing such. You can't just tax something because youf eel like it.

Re:But do you get an indian phone #?

[mobilebuddha]

dunno about the others, but i use voip mainly for outbound calls - outbound calls to western europe and canada that i am saving a lot of money. most of my friends are the same way: 1) for the friends in US, they call me on my cell, it doesn't save them any more penny to call me on the voip line than it is to call me on my cell -> may actually be cheaper if calling cell if they are using the same carrier since that use mobile to mobile minutes. 2) for the people outside of US, calling a cell vs. some random # makes no differences at all (at least not to my knowledge). they are more likely to reach me if they call me on cell. most of these calls occur at night, where i have nights & weekends anyway.

Re:What about AIM/iChat/MSN/Yahoo/etc?

[adrew]

Understood...mine too. But I have a cell phone and use it for most of my local and long-distance calls. I do have a landline but only 'cause DSL's the only option in my apt complex.

But, let's face it. Cell phone quality isn't all it's cracked up to be, especially when you're talking to another cell phone user. And I have a 2.5 Mbit connection sitting here idle most of the time. Why don't more people exploit that? I mean, I'm already paying $50 a month for it. Why add another bill?