Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
The FCC’s universal service tax is officially out of control. The agency announced yesterday that the “universal service contribution factor” for the 1st quarter of 2012 will go up to 17.9%. This “contribution factor” is a tax imposed on telecom companies that is adjusted on a quarterly basis to accommodate universal service programs. The FCC [...]
The debate over the imposition of sales tax collection obligations on interstate vendors is heating up again at the federal level with the introduction of S. 1452, “The Main Street Fairness Act.” [pdf] The measure would give congressional blessing to a multistate compact that would let states impose sales taxes on interstate commerce, something usually [...]
My latest Forbes column notes how “Taxes On Talking Are On the Rise Across the U.S.” with levies on mobile phones and devices skyrocketing. I build my argument around data and arguments found in Dan Rothschild’s excellent recent Mercatus Center paper, which makes “The Case Against Taxing Cell Phone Subscribers,” as well as an important [...]
[The following essay is a guest post from Dan Rothschild, Managing Director of the State and Local Policy Project at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.] As cell phone ownership has tripled in the United States over the last decade, policymakers have increasingly seen mobile devices as a cash cow. In some states, consumers [...]
I was pleased to see columnists George Will of The Washington Post and Jeff Jacoby of The Boston Globe take on the Internet sales tax issue in two smart recent essays. Will’s Post column (“Working Up a Tax Storm in Illinois“) and Jacoby’s piece,”There’s No Fairness in Taxing E-Sales,” are both worth a read. They [...]
By Adam Thierer & Berin Szoka In a series of upcoming essays, we will be examining proposals being put forward today that would have the government play a greater role in sustaining struggling media enterprises, “saving journalism,” or promoting more “public interest” content. The reason we’re working up this multi-part series is because, with many [...]
Could dramatic increases in myopia (nearsightedness) be used as an excuse to tax e-mail and social networking?
Joe Tighe, an IT Infrastructure Consultant, has an interesting essay up over at Circle ID. He takes a hard look at Rep. Ed Markey’s proposed “Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009″ and makes an argument that many of us here have made ad nauseum — regulation involves trade-offs and unintended consequences: One of the main [...]
Adam Thierer and I have warned that neutrality regulation, once imposed on broadband providers, will extend to other Internet services wherever “gatekeepers” are alleged to control access to a platform used by others. In short, the slippery slope of creeping common carriage is real and we’re already heading down it, with cyber-collectivist “luminaries” like Jonathan [...]
by Adam Thierer & Berin Szoka — (Ver. 1.0 — Summer 2009) We are attempting to articulate the core principles of cyber-libertarianism to provide the public and policymakers with a better understanding of this alternative vision for ordering the affairs of cyberspace. We invite comments and suggestions regarding how we should refine and build-out this [...]
May 28, 2012
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
