Possible Taxes For Broadband Users

Morganis101 writes "CNET News reports that some broadband users might have to endure new universal service taxes. From the article: 'The suggestions came as lawmakers started debating changes to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which created the framework for the Universal Service Fund. The USF should continue to be industry funded, but the base of contributors should be expanded to all providers of two-way communications, regardless of technology used, to ensure competitive neutrality, a bipartisan coalition of rural legislators said in a June 28 letter to the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee, which will be drafting the rewrites. That means companies providing broadband services such as VoIP over telephone wires would also have to pay into the fund.'"

All Those War Taxes...

[__aaclcg7560]

We already got a telephone tax [house.gov] to fund the Spanish-American War (1898). I wouldn't be surprised if we have a broadband tax to fund the Iraqi-American War, too.

Money Wheel

[Doc Ruby]

Now that cable broadband is officially an info service, not a telecom service, its providers don't have to pay taxes. So of course its users have to pay taxes, or Congress won't be able to pass itself pay raises [boston.com]. The money's gotta come from somewhere - and it ain't comin' from campaign bribes^Wcontributions. That money is mostly spent on ads, run by cable companies.

Taxation without Representation?

[Anonymous Coward]

How can something the government does not provide, aid, or own be taxed? If these taxes go towards better service, faster connections or hell, even free broadband for underpriveledged areas then I see no problem. If this tax goes towards anything other than the service that is BEING taxed then maybe its time for a tea party.

To paraphrase George Orwell:

[Dioscorea]

Towards the government I feel no scruples and would dodge paying the broadband tax if I could. Yet I would give my life for the Internet readily enough, if I thought it necessary. No one is patriotic about taxes.

--George Orwell's Wartime Diary, 1940

Re:Future speak

[ConceptJunkie]

Yeah, but here's the context:

We will need more taxes revenues to finance our spending like a drunken sailor. We should give you a justification for it, seeing as how we waste so much money, billions literally fall through the cracks. But we might be able to slip it in a way that you won't notice, like so many other taxes you pay... indirectly. If not and you complain, we will suggest that you are unpatriotic.

Re:Why only Broadband?

[tomhudson]

Its not going to matter in 5-10 years, as everyone will have their own wifi node and connect through local meshes [wikipedia.org] to everyone else and say a big Fuck You to regulation.

Look at the incentives:

• Screws over ISPs (bypasses them)
• Screws over Uncle Sam (can't have ISP collect tax)
• Screws over RIAA (can't complain to your ISP)
• Screws over MPAA (can't complain to your ISP)
• Screws over DMCA, PATRIOT (no more takedown notices to ISPs)

The Internet doesn't just route around damage - it also routes around unpopular policies.

Re:What does this fund, actually fund?

[Secrity]

Some examples of what this tax has funded: It Puerto Rico, it was supposed to be used to wire 1,500 of Puerto Rico's schools for the Internet. In 2001, only nine schools had been wired. Auditors also found nearly $23 million in equipment that had never been installed in [Puerto Rican] schools, along with $3 million per month spent on high-speed Internet connections in schools that didn't even have PCs. In Chicago, about $8 million worth of equipment provided by SBC was never deployed in the city's public schools.

Re:I for one...

[serutan]

The money is suppoed to go into the Universal Service Fund, which (if you read the article you'd know) is used to help provide services to low income people, non-profits and so on. So it sort of does benefit the online community by including more people in it.

However, I wish that if they want to do that sort of thing they would do it by increasing existing taxes and taking the money out of there, rather than creating a new tax mechanism with all its accompanying overhead, which eats into the money collected. We already have a vast army of people whose careers revolve entirely around taxation rather than productive work.