US House Votes To Renew Internet Tax Ban

Talen317 writes with news that the US House of Representatives has voted overwhelmingly to renew the ban on taxing Internet access — but only for 4 years, not permanently. A majority of House members (238) co-signed the bill to make the moratorium permanent. Republicans blamed the House leadership for refusing to bring this latter bill to a vote, charging that the Democrats wanted to leave the door open for future taxation. Not so, countered Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.), one of the sponsors of the 4-year bill. The Senate must act on the moratorium before Nov. 1 if taxation is to be avoided, and Watt claimed that a permanent ban would be dead on arrival in the Senate.

Nothing is "permanent" when it comes to laws

[Anonymous Coward]

Especially regular old Congressional laws. Even a Constitutional amendment is amendable.

Re:Sudden outbreak of common sense?

[DaveWick79]

Yes, but 4 years from now, voters are not going to be any more likely to be in favor of paying extra tax $$'s just because they bought something on the internet.

The reason such a tax is brought up is because state and local government are losing sales tax revenue to Internet purchases. A far better solution would be to charge a fixed sales tax on all out of state purchases, whether via mail, phone, or internet. Funneling those revenues back to local communities would be a big pain in the butt for the various tax agencies, but it beats making people pay extra on everything.