Posted by: pinemikey

Congress proposes tax on all Net, data connections
By Declan McCullagh CNET News.com January 28, 2005, 3:50 PM PT

An influential congressional committee has dropped a political bombshell by suggesting that a tax originally created to pay for the Spanish American War could be extended to all Internet and data connections this year.

The committee, deeply involved in writing U.S. tax laws, unexpectedly said in a report Thursday that the 3 percent telecommunications tax could be revised to cover "all data communications services to end users," including broadband; dial-up; fiber; cable modems; cellular; and DSL, or digital subscriber line, links.

Currently, the 3 percent excise tax applies only to traditional telephone service. But because of technological convergence and the dropping popularity of landlines, the Joint Committee on Taxation concluded in its review of tax law reforms that it might make sense to extend the 100-year old levy to new technologies. The committee did not take a position on whether Congress should approve such an extension and simply listed it as an "option."

[Uh-oh]

More at: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-5555385.html?tag=zdfd.newsfeed

"a tax originally created to pay for the Spanish American War"

Geez. When do we get the bill for World War II, Korea, Vietnam and Iraq?

Oh, I'm sorry, I posted much too fast, failing to realize that the Spanish American War was fought over the issue of running broadband fiber optics to Puerto Rico.

LOL

That was the Spanglish American War.

Ya' know, I bet the Spanish would have settled out of court for a mere $5,000....

Out of court settlements work for the RIAA....

Congress must have financed the thing with a variable rate or something!

As if your cable Internet connection wasn't expensive enough, here's a possible 3% more.

yup, the good old internet is just about to become the feds newest cash cow.

Wow, no wonder Puerto Rico doesn't want to join the Union: they don't want to pay for us liberating them from the yoke of Alphonso XIII and Spain.

I guess once we've paid that one off, we'll start paying off the bill for World War I.

Politicians not being completely honest is nothing new. Saying no new taxes sounds like no increases and no added money makers.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. Government is ever hungry for funds. The fact that the tax to pay for the Spanish American War is still collecting and still on the roles only shows two things. One is that there are more than just this one bringing in taxes that you would never have thought would still be active. The second is that the increase or shifting of those funds is but common place practice.

Our Social Security money funds didn't just dry up. We have all paid for it all our lives and with out choice. Politicians got into it and got their funds at our expense. They figure what the heck, they aren't going to be there to face the music when the taxpayer wants an accounting on that money they paid in and where it is. Doesn't matter that folks live longer, doesn't matter there are less today than yesterday paying. Fact is that we already paid that money. It was taken out without choice. How they spent it, I don't want to hear. I want to hear my money is there and waiting on me. I paid it, where is it?

Consider Bush's campaign promisses:

1. No new taxes. No tax increases. In fact, I will drop taxes!
2. I will ensure the safety and security of our nation by increasing military spending.
3. Were goin' to mars!

Now factor in a very, very expensive war and a steadily growing budget defecit. Those aims are unachieveable.

Not to put too fine a spin on it, but... Bush is full of crap. I cant put it any more politely than that.

Getting off the Bush-bashing, which is little fun in a place so empty of bush-supporters for a good debate (flamewar), note this is just an option - congress would have to approve it, and they havn't even considered considering it yet. It will probably come to nothing. That, and there is the full strength of the communications and electronics industry lobby to oppose it.

Hey guys I've been reading here for three years and decided I'd finally post! Anyways, I thought last year Bush wrote into law that there was a permenant ban on the Internet period? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought he was a strong supporter of the growth of the Internet, instead of limiting it because he wants everyone to have broadband by 2009...

Reading the artilce, i found this to explain why the tax is still in force:

Congress enacted the so-called "luxury" excise tax at 1 cent a phone call to pay for the Spanish American War back in 1898, when only a few thousand phone lines existed in the country. It was repealed in 1902, but was reimposed at 1 cent a call in 1914 to pay for World War I and eventually became permanent at a rate of 3 percent in 1990.

So it appears that it's now paying off WWI.

And here is a paragraph that lists some of the members of this committee:

Members of the Joint Committee on Taxation include Sens. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa; Orrin Hatch, R-Utah; Max Baucus, D-Mont.; John Rockefeller, D-W.Va.; and representatives Bill Thomas, R-Calif.; and Charles Rangel, D-N.Y.


Also, the House did vote to repeal the tax a few years ago, but the Senate never voted on the bill.

p5yk0 wrote:
Hey guys I've been reading here for three years and decided I'd finally post! Anyways, I thought last year Bush wrote into law that there was a permenant ban on the Internet period? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought he was a strong supporter of the growth of the Internet, instead of limiting it because he wants everyone to have broadband by 2009...

The president san 't do anything about taxes without the concent of Congress. And unfortunately, teh Senate doesn't give a damn about us. They just have to do enought o keep their states happy, to keep sending them back.

all this country needs right now is one new law that would refine and disclose all the hidden and revealed laws and taxes, The Law would require for the next fifty years that each time a new law or tax is passed two must be removed from the books, this would make the blood sucker in washinton think twice about trying to make the tax payers pay more and more, we have to many laws on the books a exsample, in my town we still have laws that state you can not ride a horse down main street on sunday and you must have a hitching post in front of your home, my freinds don not ride horses to my house anymore. If they did and their horse took a dump in the street they would be ticketed for littering !

Military don't start wars, politicians do. So the politicians should be taxed for all the wars they started.

Welcome p5yk0,

Good to see you here on the board and posting. Always better to members post than just to lurk.

Or perhaps politicians should have to do something in the war except sit at home and get fat and stupid. Put their asses in the lines, then see how fast they talk of peace. It all comes down to if you don't have to fear war, why talk of peace.

Second, if anyone here thinks that Kerry would have done anything different. I must argue that is untrue. Policticians are all the same, talk and looks. Nothing ever really changes. Not with a 2 party political system that both want the same thing, control of everything and anything.

Yep, I have to agree with you.

Generation X pays 24% of their money into taxes. The whole generation is going into debt. As a country founding by men who didnt want taxes, look what we've become. I want our own bosont tea party. We need to regain control of our government.

I beg to differ Lothar2... I read about 2-4 months ago that Congress sent the bill to the President and he vetoed it. He instead line item vetoed it and sent it back for approval. This was passed and there was a permenant ban on Internet taxes (although this didn't settle on VoIP).
As far as what MRNEMO said, I completely agree. This is the generation of people suing each other over pissy things - you stole my idea, I'm going to sue. People don't actually understand what good P2P is and they think just because it's downloading, that it should be illegal. Hell no! We need to overthrow our government and put some REAL damn people in there, who want P2P, less taxes, and less spending!