GOP CONGRESSMAN TURNS UP ANTI-NET TAX HEAT

John Kasich \nWASHINGTON - "There is an irresistible urge on the part of politicians to get their hands on the piggy bank." So says Ohio Congressman John Kasich to a group of Internet tax opponents calling themselves the e-Freedom Coalition, in promoting his bill to make a current moratorium on Internet taxes permanent.

The current moratorium expires October 2001. The e-Freedom Coalition - which includes the Small Business Survival Committee and the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, as well as eighteen other groups - are warning of the dangers in several plans to lay taxes on goods and services bought and sold online.

"Congress should ensure that this important new medium is not subjected to discriminatory and potentially unconstitutional state and local taxes," the Heritage Foundation's Adam Thierer says.

The concern isn't only at the federal level. Virginia Governor James Gilmore has proposed to the Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce, which he chairs, a complete elimination of Internet taxes. His plan would erase taxes on Internet purchases, kill over $3 billion in federal excise taxes on local and long distance telephone services, send federal tax dollars back to the states to compensate for prior Internet taxes, and let federal welfare dollars go to buying computers for poor families - not to mention opposing internal Internet tariffs.

"The Internet represents a marvelous tool of empowerment for people all over the world," he tells Conservative News Service. "It is the most transforming technological development since the industrial revolution, and its growth must not be thwarted by taxation."