The House of Representatives has passed legislation (402-0) extending the moratorium on state Internet access taxes for seven years out to 2014. The bill, set to expire Nov. 1st, has already passed through the Senate last Thursday, leaving final approval up to the President.
While the House bill was three years longer than the body initially proposed, some senators called to permanently end the tax. Telephone based services have not been so lucky. For instance, the FCC ruled internet services that connect to publicly switched phone networks had to contribute to the Universal Service Fund. The issue gets muddier, however, as communication services move completely online.
News reports say if the moratorium is not extended, bandwidth costs could raise as much as 17 percent.
Initially signed into law in 1998, the Internet Tax Freedom Act bars federal, state and local governments from taxing Internet access and discriminatory Internet-only taxes such as bit taxes, bandwidth taxes, and email taxes. It was previously extended to 2007 as the Internet Tax Nondiscrimination Act of 2004.
So it appears that at least taxes on the net will remain neutral.
More details can be found at http://www.fant...lation/H.R.3678 including the related bills and votes.
Really happy with this. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you god, internet neutrality is the basis of the web, when that changes the web as we know it will have to change with it in order to allow for the taxing of individuals and businesses. The most interesting article on this case was John Doerr’s address on taking down the Telecoms. I think that may be the eventual only option
…Still, US Internet infrastructure is lacking. Here in Finland I’m sitting on a optical fiber with honest 80-90 Mbit…
…and in US, some towns are still not connected even to ADSL. Ok, then.
If Finland has it, then we should have it too =(
Finland is much smaller than U.S., but still fact that even Silicon Valley doesn’t have blazing fast Internet access is… yuck.
402 to 0 is virtually unheard of in a partisan government.
and it’s not even an election year.
Triple Taxation on .Gov failed. DAMN IT!!!
If the congress pass the law. Every S, C corporation, .com, .Mil and .Gov websites have to pay triple taxation. You pay three level taxes.
I know why they voted against internet taxes. Senators who own their website will have to pay taxes too.
Government have pay eavesdropping taxes too. Some people like triple taxation theory. It drives corporation and lobbyists mad.
The politicians will always figure out a way to extort money!
ttp://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
Thanks for that news Nick, I think the Government of other democratic countries should follow this.
Thanks for that news.
Thanks for that news.
Thanks You !