The Congressionally-appointed committee studying the issue of taxing the Internet reportedly says it won't decide on a final recommendation, one way or the other, until March.
The committee met in San Francisco this week, under pressure from a number of tax watchdogs - some of whose members were said to be part of the committee, if not attending the meeting - to make permanent a moratorium on Internet taxes. That permanent moratorium has the support of at least two Presidential candidates, Republican Senator John McCain and his rival, Forbes publisher Steve Forbes.
At the beginning of the meeting Tuesday, the committee's chairman, Virginia Governor James Gilmore, presented a proposal to ban Net taxes entirely. The Gilmore proposal calls for eliminating all taxes on Internet purchases, eliminating $3.3 billion in federal excise taxes on local and long distance telephone service, return federal tax dollars to the states to make up for "lost" sales tax dollars on Net services, and allow federal welfare dollars to go for buying computers for poor families - as well as opposing internal Internet tariffs.
Meanwhile, Conservative News Service says a coalition of over 20 taxpayer and public policy groups - from the Small Business Survival Committee to the Heritage Foundation - kept up the pressure against Net taxes.
"There is an irresistible urge on the part of politicians to get their hands on the piggy bank," says Ohio Congressman John Kasich, who spoke to the e-Freedom Coalition - which supports Kasich's Internet Tax Elimination Act. That bill would make the current moratorium on Net taxes permanent. The moratorium now expires in 2001.
"Congress should ensure that this important new medium is not subjected to discriminatory and potentially unconstitutional state and local taxes," says the Heritage Foundation's Adam Thierer to CNS.
Meanwhile, perhaps the most vocal supporter of Net taxes attending the San Francisco meeting was Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk - who once was just as strongly opposed to the idea. "The 45-year-old mayor…didn't really want to be known as the Man Who Taxed The Net," says Wired, but he proposed a plan similar to that of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, requiring American shoppers to pay their local sales taxes whether buying online or via toll-free numbers.
He tells Wired that if a voluntary basis won't work, it should become law. Indeed, he says it would make more sense to make it law.
