Amended Internet Tax Ban Will Not Include VoIP

Spritzer writes "Yesterday, the House Judiciary Committee approved an amendment to the Internet Tax Freedom Act of 1998 which would prevent the tax ban from expiring. However, the amendment also eliminates tax protection for VoIP services. 'The amendment, offered by committee Chairman John Conyers Jr., a Michigan Democrat, would extend the ban on Internet access taxes until Nov. 1, 2011. ... The Conyers amendment would allow nine states with Internet access taxes to continue them. It would also narrow the definition of Internet access, excluding services such as VoIP from the tax ban.'"

Re:Exclude VOIP?

[Gregb05]

I assume that the ban on VOIP regards telephone-like systems, and not stuff like Ventrilo.

If you're paying for VOIP phones, I would believe that you're subject to taxation, much like if you're paying for phone service.

Disclaimer: IANAMOC

Re:Exclude VOIP?

[Stonent1]

How does it not constitute internet access? Simple. Lets say Verizon or AT&T comes along and says, "We're no longer running copper POTS lines to houses, we are only using fiber" But the problem ends up being those people still need phone service.

So what they do is run fiber to the house and install a VOIP box on a limited bandwidth connection (such as 128k), but they configure it to block all traffic except the ports that their VOIP service uses. So now you have phone service as you normally would, but if you want internet, you have to call them and upgrade to another package. The hardware is already in your house, you just need to plug into it once they unlock the service.

Whoa There Cowboys

[HBergeron]

This marks a particularly sad moment in the history of News for Nerds political activism.

While I agree that specifically allowing taxation of voip "for which there is a charge" (the language in the actual law) is a bad idea, it was a bad idea back in 2003 when it was included in the LAST internet tax renewal that became law. The voip language in the current bill is just a restatement of what has been law for 4 years. The fact that an editor here, particularly an editor who feels comfortable passing on political stories, is ignorant of a pretty important provision in one of the most prominent pieces of technology legislation (and a one page piece of legislation at that) does not give a lot of aid and comfort to those who support the tech community on these issues.

Now, if you want to complain about something, this new House bill, and the one currently in the Senate Commerce committee (Not the Wyden (author of the original internet tax ban) Senate bill S.156, or Eshoo House bill H.743) both include a revised definition that specifically only covers services offered by ISPs, opening up non-isp web services (net radio, youtube, joost) to taxation. Big surprise, these narrower definitions are the ones championed by Verizon and ATT and the now ironically named "don't tax the web" coalition.