Senate Passes Bill Making Internet Tax Ban Permanent (consumerist.com) 95
kheldan writes: Nearly two decades ago, Congress passed the first Internet Tax Freedom Act, establishing that — with a handful of grandfathered exceptions — local, state, and federal governments couldn't impose taxes on Internet access. Problem is, that law has had to be renewed over and over, each time with an expiration date. But today, the U.S. Senate finally passed a piece of legislation that would make the tax ban permanent.
That's great (Score:3, Insightful)
Now we get to see what the Republican-controlled House does. Surely they hate taxes too...
How will the congressman from Amazon vote? (Score:3)
Why not tax the internet? I can see not taxing it when it was a fledging system but there's no technological or bussiness reason not to tax it. Even amazon is open to this.You can be against taxes but if were going to tax regular stores it makes sense to tax the internet.
Re:Internet service, not stores. (Score:3, Informative)
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Because the government doesn't deserve more tax money.
Re:How will the congressman from Amazon vote? (Score:5, Insightful)
Tax on the connection, not goods purchased using it.
If you let them tax the connection you'd quickly get states and cities imposing either per user taxes or a per meg tax based on 1995 average webpage size and traffic statistics.
If the ban had lapsed, you can bet the first words out of my city mayor's mouth would have been "email postage".
Chicago's Internet Tax (Score:3)
Chicago introduced a tax last summer on streaming and cloud-based services.
http://www.theverge.com/2015/7... [theverge.com]
Re:How will the congressman from Amazon vote? (Score:5, Informative)
Why not tax the internet? I can see not taxing it when it was a fledging system
The internet connectivity is sometimes taxed through telecommunications taxes, particularly federal ones.
The ban is on state/city taxation of network access.
It prohibits things such as providers having to pay a "Franchise tax" for every city, discriminatory taxes, E.g. "LAN Tax per Port", "bit tax", "bandwidth tax", "Tax per E-mail message", "$0.05 per Instant message, Tweet, or Facebook update"
The Tax Freedom act does not prohibit things such as Sales Tax on real or digital goods, and taxing the providers' profits.... Internet-based transactions are still subject to tax; it's the internet connectivity itself that is protected.
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Because state, county, and local governments are constrained from taxing INTERSTATE commerce. That is the purview of the federal government. The internet is an interstate communications network. Any tax revenue from the internet is accumulated by taxes on the internet service provider's profits.
We don't want to go there. Not at all. We don't want an internet tax. Implementing something like one mil per gigabyte usage tax would require a nightmarish expensive bureaucratic infrastructure to implement.
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(note that this is access tax, not tax on sales over the internet)
It would depend what the tax was for.
If the tax was similar to that levied on phone lines to help fund the rural build out, then it is completely reasonable.
if the tax is one meant (or abused) to prevent or discriminate access, then not so much.
Re:That's great (Score:4, Informative)
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For some definition of "control". If you do not have a supermajority, you do not have REAL control in the Senate. The House is not subject to the filibuster; neither the real kind like the one in Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, nor the watered-down fake "I-threaten-a-filibuster" kind that are all we see nowadays, but are enough to get the job done.
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Now we get to see what the Republican-controlled House does. Surely they hate taxes too...
So lets see now. Before, your in-store purchases provided tax revenue that the state used for roads and infrastructure. Other parts of that tax would cover public housing and some essential services.
Now, the senators have said, No internet taxes. Does that mean that the state has to raise sales tax, or impose sales taxes on items previously untaxed, such as food? Look to your electric and gas bills to have taxes incremented.
I believe that the internet tax should be for the destination address of an item. I
well, until it's amended. (Score:2)
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Here's a link to the definition of the word permanent:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/permanent
It's meaning is very specific: "lasting or continuing for a very long time or forever : not temporary or changing." It doesn't mean it can't ever be changed, just that it is not temporary like the previous laws that have an expiration date. It doesn't mean no one can ever change it, ever.
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I think the idea behind calling it permanent was that it remains law without any further action from congress as opposed to sun setting and needing renewed.
But yes. I thought the same thing. No law or constitutional provision is permanent in the strict sense because after some arbitrary time in the 1800s, it can all be amended.
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It won't take an amendment.
Some states, such as California, impose "use taxes" on items imported from other states. These "use taxes" are exactly the same percentage as sales taxes in those areas, but because they aren't technically taxing the sale, they get away with it under our constitution.
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It won't take an amendment.
Some states, such as California, impose "use taxes" on items imported from other states. These "use taxes" are exactly the same percentage as sales taxes in those areas, but because they aren't technically taxing the sale, they get away with it under our constitution.
Actually court rulings imply that if someone was able to get a lawsuit to the supreme court the court might find that to not actually be legal, because they have found anything even indirectly related to interstate commerce is controlled by Congress. The supreme court has ruled that even growing and using your own stuff falls under interstate commerce because your not buying it elsewhere.[1] If the courts say something like that falls under the commerce clause then I bet they would include something that a
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I bet they would include something that actually seems like it should be.
You assume their judgement will not be bent by the needs of the states.
I read from this article [scotusblog.com] a little notation, about how some Supreme court justices may want to re-consider the case due to the change in economic climate (regarding internet commerce).
It sounds a bit legislative to me, But I guess that is the nature of our newly Politicized Supreme court, which can now be viewed a progressive-demo-socialist corrupted insti
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Yet the governments still manage to pull in taxes proportional to GDP, keeping up with GDP growth (rather than proportional to population, or to a set of well-planned needs, gawrsh how old school I am!)
So...again to hell with that. No new taxes to start ratcheting up!
Re: Bad idea to ban internet taxes (Score:2, Informative)
I know it's /., but did you not even read the summary? This has nothing to do with good purchases online. This is only about taxing internet access.
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did you not even read the summary?
You must be new here.
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What the fuck does reading the title have to do with anything?
Lobbying (Score:1)
An internet tax hurts the dominant players in the communications industry because it makes overall prices higher, making people more likely to switch provider to a lower cost provider. Verizon alone has spent tens of millions of dollars lobbying Congress, so Congress votes in their favor.
See, e.g., https://www.opensecrets.org/or... [opensecrets.org]
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This for banning taxes on internet service, not taxes related to purchasing goods over the internet.
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No, because this has nothing to do with sales tax.
"Permanent"? (Score:3, Insightful)
No Congress can pass a law that a subsequent Congress can't repeal. There is no such thing as "permanent."
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Re:"Permanent"? (Score:5, Informative)
"Permanent" in context means that they don't have to keep renewing the law.
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"Permanent" in context means that they don't have to keep renewing the law.
Which is kind of a big deal, considering this congress has trouble passing routine legislation, and for all we know the next one could be even worse.
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What is bothersome to me is we now exist in a state of massive overspending, with tax cuts being only temporary.
Hooray for this win! A new, additional tax to ratchet up is not, in fact, born!
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You shouldn't claim snide technicalities based on intentional misunderstanding to make yourself look smarter, unless you know what you're talking about or want to be taken down a notch.
No Congress can pass a law that a subsequent Congress can't repeal. There is no such thing as "permanent."
Sure they can. With a two-thirds majority in each house, they could pass a joint resolution for a Constitutional amendment abolishing Congress. Once they do that, it's out of their hands -- they can't repeal it, even if it hasn't yet been ratified by the states. And if ratified, any other laws Congress already passed wouldn't
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Four more years for grandfathered states (Score:3)
According to TFA, states with existing taxes have four more years to phase them out. Why give some states even one more minute of special taxes that other states aren't allowed to impose?
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States have fiscal commitments, they would raise hell at having a funding stream removed, and would put pressure to bear on their own legislators at the least, possibly more direct action in a judicial forum, and otherwise stink things up.
Basically, avoiding political infighting by giving your roommate/ex-spouse/former partner time to deal with business before precipitous action.
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I could probably come up with some plausible-sounding reasons, but in practice I'm guessing it's because the lost tax revenue will be the problem of the next people in office and not the current crop.
Meh (Score:2)
So as you can see reading comprehension is a rare and precious commodity and most of these people think this is about sales taxes....
Anyhow, I'm ambivalent. If governments could tax internet service they would be more inclined to accommodate providers with right-of-way and other regulatory favors for digital build-outs and upgrades, so service availability might actually improve. On the other hand, I have no trouble imagining states like Illinois just pummeling citizens with stupid high taxes so they ca
Re:reading comprehension (Score:1)
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As an Illinois resident with a state job and tiny step toward a vested pension, I have to say you're misinformed about the pensions. Workers pay 8% of their own income toward the pensions and do not deposit into nor are eligible for Social Security benefits. The payout is not spectacular unless you were overpaid to begin with.
Most everything about Illinois corruption is true, but the pensions just aren't one of them.
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I know I'm screwed, but the pension itself was never the problem - it's been gutted for its money and would have been solvent enough on its own. I'm working to get out, but I know others who never will. Rauner tried to vilify the state workers themselves and a LOT of people believed it blindly. That's what I was arguing against - because it seemed that the OP implied that the pension was padded with so much money.
But there's no point linking me to a paywall. Especially the Tribune.
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I am the original poster, and the post with the Tribune link was me as well. Honestly not sure why that went up as AC; I fully intended to put my name to it.
Rauner tried to vilify the state workers themselves and a LOT of people believed it blindly. That's what I was arguing against
As far as I'm concerned state employees deserve vilification. It's your employee pressure groups — unions and lobbyists — ripping off the system. You elect them. Your dues pay them. You vote for the politicians they need to enable all this. The only way any of this could ever get corrected is if you employees reformed the institutions
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I'm not represented by a union. It's true that there are some union-represented groups who were able to get more out of a contract than they should have, but that's not the general case.
You didn't address that there is nothing wrong with the pension system as it was created. And if it tanks, it's not because it failed on its own. It's because money was stolen from it and was unable to earn anything because it wasn't sitting where it was supposed to.
The only way any of this could ever get corrected is if you employees reformed the institutions that represent you, but we all know you won't.
Which means what, exactly?
hating on whom you're told to hate (Rauner, herp derp)
Are you kidding? Nobody told
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I'm not represented by a union.
That is highly unlikely. If you're employed by the state and eligible for a state pension it is difficult to imagine the powers-that-be would have forgotten to put you under one of their many umbrellas, and if they have then you're a special snowflake and I'll confine my remarks to the 99.999% of state employees that are union members and are part of the problem.
there is nothing wrong with the pension system as it was created
I'm sure that argument is going to have a big impact with the judge that will have to unwind who knows how many decades of corruption.
Nobody told me to hate Rauner.
No one had t
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You are ruining this world and my time in it. My entire family are effectively refugees of governments run by people with your mentality. You destroy things. We are enemies. And if that's news to you then I'm pleased to have that advantage.
Polarizing the issue and demonizing people is exactly the political game right now. If you don't see that you're dehumanizing people and trying to ruin other people's lives just to keep yours from being ruined, you're blind to it all and I can't argue this further. You can't fix decades of abuse with a quick fix in a few years on the backs of innocent people.
Since you singled out the pension programs, I'll mention that mine is ONLY funded by payroll, through an organizaton that has received zero in approp
Expiration date? (Score:2)
All laws should have one. The entire government should have one. End the careerism
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All laws should have one.
Alternatively, the law should be limited to a maximum size. Any new law requires removing an old one that was passed during some time of moral panic and no one cares for any more, for example, in order to create space.
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Sounds like a fresh out of college coder.
It's all a mess and I don't know why any of this cruft is here. Let's rewrite the whole thing with Ruby. We'll worry about bug fixes after the rewrite is done.
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More like *Time to yank out the old cables clogging the tray*.
Semantics (Score:2)
Cell phone service taxes (Score:5, Interesting)
Forgive me if this is a stupid question. Lots of jurisdictions impose taxes on cell phone service. Where I live right now does so. I have LTE, in which everything (voice, texts, data) is sent as data. Essentially it's purely an internet connection. If Congress makes it illegal for anyone to tax internet access, wouldn't this also cover wireless services? For previous generations of wireless technology, it could be argued that the portions not sent as data were what was being taxed. That doesn't seem to be the case for LTE where it's all data. Unless there's some specific exemption for wireless services that I'm not aware of, shouldn't this mean that my city imposing a tax for cell phone services on me is illegal under federal law?
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The bill the Senate voted on is HR 644, which simply references existing law and indicates that the moratorium on internet taxes is to be made permanent. Here's the text of the existing law [house.gov]. From reading it, it seems clear that it refers both to wired and wireless internet connections, so I'm interested in where you see otherwise. This is what I see, as it defines internet access:
(4) Internet.-The term 'Internet' means collectively the myriad of computer and telecommunications facilities, including equipment and operating software, which comprise the interconnected world-wide network of networks that employ the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, or any predecessor or successor protocols to such protocol, to communicate information of all kinds by wire or radio.
I think the real issue is whether it's still really a telecommunications service, which I think is questionable. The major carrie
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LTE is a network, not THE Internet. It's a last mile that happens to include Internet data along with voice data.
You might as well say that Cable TV is becoming all switched digital video now and is thus also Internet. It's not. It may be data, but it's not Internet.
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Terrible summary -- access tax, NOT sales tax (Score:2)
In celebration Comcast and Time Warner (Score:2)
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You think they'll have a hard time finding new ways to charge us more? These are the remnants of Ma Bell; I doubt her playbook was lost.
Obvious Confusion Opportunity (Score:2)
You and the new management team seem to be doing right by the community so far. Article quality has improved on Slashdot, and you guys announced the end of that stupid affiliate program that SourceForge had.
I clicked on the link to this Slashdot story after seeing the title in my RSS feed. Since I was already familiar with the bill, I waited for the tab to load thinking "I bet Slashdot is going to be all gung ho for sales taxes on e-commerce purchases, despite the fact that the bill deals wi
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Mod parent up.
So much for broadband USF (Score:2)
So broadband universal service will be subsidized by landline and cell users.