US House: just say no to Internet access taxes

[krstofer]

Posted 09/17/2003 @ 11:54 AM, by Ken "Caesar" Fisher

The US House of Representatives gave Internet-based business an early Christmas present, voting to permanently ban taxes on Internet access. The vote is actually an expansion of the moratorium on Internet access-related taxes here in the US, a moratorium that has been ignored by 13 states which taxed Internet access anyway via a loophole. This new bill, should it ultimately succeed (and it is expected to), will close the avenues used by some states to tax such things as DSL lines, cable modem services and the like.

Rep. Christopher Cox, the California Republican who is the lead sponsor of the moratorium bill, touted the measure as a way to make Internet access more affordable for consumers. "We want to keep Internet access affordable, and in many places the difference between dial-up and broadband is ten bucks a month," Cox said. "If ten dollars a month is already a barrier for people to embrace broadband, adding an increment on top of that is only going to keep the digital divide wide open."

You might think that something as small as an access tax wouldn't matter, but when you consider that Texas is brining in US$45 million a year from such taxes, you can see that we're not talking about chump change here. The ruling has no effect on Internet sales tax.

http://krstofer.org