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from the no-taxation-without-something-or-other dept.
A U.S. House of Representatives committee has approved a bill that would permanently extend a moratorium on broadband access and Internet-specific taxes that Congress has temporarily extended three times over the past 16 years. The House Judiciary Committee's 30-4 vote Wednesday sends the bill to the full House for a vote. The bill would also have to pass the Senate before becoming law. The bill, called the Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act [PITFA], would also remove past exemptions for seven states, including Texas and Ohio, that had Internet taxes in place before the moratorium first passed in 1998.
A permanent tax moratorium on Internet-only taxes will allow the Internet to continue to drive the U.S. economy and serve "as the greatest gateway to knowledge and engine of self improvement that has ever existed," said Representative Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican and committee chairman. The current Internet tax moratorium expires Nov. 1. "If the moratorium is not renewed, the potential tax burden on consumers will be substantial," with access tax rates that would likely exceed 10 percent, Goodlatte said.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 20 2014, @05:13AM
Euro-land has VAT or IVA because it has no tariffs on borders but a high degree of trade imbalance accompanied by a need for state revenue that can't be adjusted by tweaking monetary policy (one euro, many budgets). The EU could save itself a lot of headaches by unifying the budgets to match the unified monetary system -- surrender national spending to Brussels -- and let the central power redistribute wealth between member regions according to need. That's what the US does: the rural states receive a massive wealth transfer from the urban states, and no one complains. That obviates the need for a VAT and allows for more progressive forms of taxation.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday June 20 2014, @07:51AM
Progressive taxation. You say it like its a Good thing. (In fact the word "progressive" is just a substitute for that which has already been rejected, wrapped up in new language).
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by strattitarius on Friday June 20 2014, @07:53PM
Slashdot Beta Sucks. Soylent Alpha Rules. News at 11.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday June 21 2014, @12:53AM
Regressive (as applied to sales/vat taxes) is a myth, one born of practiced self delusion, but really fed by "soak it to the rich" jealousy, and a Utopian desire for equal outcome, regardless of effort.
Rich pay far far more in sales/vat tax, simply because they spend vastly more, employ vastly more, and pay far more income taxes on top of sales/vat tax.
Poor get government subsidies that more than make up for sale/vat taxes, making their tax burden much lower and, in most cases, negative.
Yet people arguing the regressive tax nonsense, without the benefit of a single economics class, continue ignoring the subsidies, trot out the old "percentage of income" nonsense time after time, even after these facts have been pointed out them them.
Its a specious argument.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Friday June 20 2014, @08:35AM
Hah... Either you're joking, or you've never been in California or known people here. Simply put, most of it's farmland or undeveloped, and aside from the few affluent areas, has been struggling enough since the dot-com crash in '00 that people are openly very unhappy at having money sent to other states when we need it.
(Score: 2) by monster on Friday June 20 2014, @04:39PM
That's false. There are also tariffs on many kinds of products.
For example, some time ago I bought an Unicomp Model M keyboard and customs applied a tariff of almost 40% of its price. I would have bought it anyway if I knew the real price, but it was a nasty surprise.