Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's office says debate on a Senate bill to make a ban on Internet access taxes permanent won't resume until November 6 at the soonest.
A spokesman for Frist told CNET the debate might well take two days, after the bill stalled in the Senate last week after one "highly contested phrase," barring states from taxing telecommunications services when "such services are used to provide Internet access," provoked Senate allies of the National Governors Association to scream that the wording would ban state governments "from cashing in on a mammoth source of revenue," CNET said.
A federal moratorium on Internet access taxes expired November 1, which leaves state governments in theory free to lay new taxes on dialup, wireless, and broadband connections to the Internet. Opponents of a permanent ban say it would "cost" state and local governments billions in "lost" revenue. The House voted September 17 for a permanent Net access tax moratorium.
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R- Tennessee), a former Presidential candidate, has become one of the Senate's strongest critics of banning Net access taxes, warning in a floor speech last month that a permanent ban on Net access taxes equals an "unfounded mandate on state and local governments of up to $9 billion a year."
