Previous Politech message: http://www.politechbot.com/p-04725.html --- From: "Dave McClure" <dmcclureat_private> To: <declanat_private> Subject: RE: Financial Times commentary: It's time to tax all email! Date: Wed, 7 May 2003 04:06:55 -0400 Organization: USIIA Declan: Sigh! Before we accept Roger's wholesale assault on Internet users and companies, we need to take a minute to correct his sloppy misrepresentation of a basic fact: The moratorium on Internet taxation that he describes doesn't exist. There is a moratorium on multiple and discriminatory taxes on Internet services, which prevents the states and localities from setting tax rates higher for Internet transactions that for the same transaction in a local store. There is a moratorium on taxation of the cost of Internet access, since this would make it more difficult for low-income families to afford access to the Internet. But there never was a time, a decade ago or otherwise, that Americans were duped into believing politicians could not tax the Internet. Heck, we've spent most of the last decade trying to keep their greedy little mitts off the Internet! The portion of US law that forbids the taxation of many (but not all!) Internet commerce transactions is the 1992 decision of the US Supreme Court in Quill v. North Dakota. In making its ruling, the Court said they states do not deserve to tax transactions in the case of businesses to which they provide no services. The Court also said that if the states could find a way to simplify their tax systems so that complying wouldn't automatically put small businesses out of business, they could ask Congress to pass a law permitting them to assign taxes to those transactions. So far, the states have been unable to figure out a way to simplify much of anything. Penny post? Collected by whom? And who gets the money that is collected? And is there any evidence at all that the spammers won't simply ignore the tax and keep sending their vile stuff? None that I have seen. . . This is a truly bad idea that punishes the innocent but will ultimately fail to correct the spam problem. Before we rush into such a disastrous scheme, how about if we start by defining what specific activities related to spam are illegal, and empower someone to enforce the law? Dave McClure USIIA ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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