New UK Wireless Network Tax May Hamper Internet Rollout 66
Mark.JUK writes "The Valuation Office Agency (VOA), which compiles and maintains business rating and council tax valuation lists for England and Wales, is reportedly getting ready to impose business rates (tax) upon UK wireless networks regardless of their status. The move has raised concern because many community driven wireless broadband (Wi-Fi , WiMAX) ISPs, which often exist in locations where the big players have failed to deliver adequate services (remote and rural areas), operate off some already very thin margins."
Re:Funny thing about those margins (Score:4, Informative)
Yes BadAnalogy, but there's a difference between applying a $1,000 flat tax to a small ISP with only $10,000 in total equity, versus applying $1,000 to million-dollar Comcast. The small company can't absorb the cost and will disappear..... just the same as if you applied an additional $1,000 flat tax to an engineer like me, I could swallow it but if you do the same to a McDonalds worker, he will be forced into bankruptcy.
Margins (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Funny thing about those margins (Score:4, Informative)
If that logic is correct, there should be no problem imposing a 10,000% tax right? After all, it will be the same for all ISPs, so it will be ok.
Hint - like all taxes, it raises the prices and some consumers will not be able/want to pay.
A couple of solutions (Score:3, Informative)
First let me say that I think that taxing a technology is the kind of thing that's born and implemented because of heavy lobbying by the competition (which uses a different technology) - there are zero public benefits from such a measure: it only creates artificial barriers to entry that protect the established telecoms and result in lower services and higher prices for the consumer.
That said, here's a couple of things that those that provide Internet services over wireless can do: