It appears that Senator Lamar Alexander has a different tactic in his opposition to a federal prohibition of the states ability to tax Internet access (he’s been an ardent with his states’ rights rhetoric in the past).
In support of a temporary ban, not a permanent one, he’s saying that it’s in the public interest that Congress periodically review the ban so that it can keep up with new technologies. He even says that “since the moratorium was enacted in 1998, we’ve extended it twice while changing the law substantially to meet changing technology.” Um, not really.
The Senator has it backwards about why we had to revise the moratorium twice. It’s not to update the law for new technologies. Instead, it’s to close loopholes that states have used to tax what the Moratorium said they could not tax.
Note this excerpt from the House Judiciary Committee report:
While it is true that Congress has made changes to the law virtually every time it has extended the moratorium, those changes have largely been directed at preventing states from circumventing the law….For example, the definition of ‘‘Internet access’’ was modified in 2004 to prevent states from taxing Internet access providers that purchase capacity over wire, cable, fiber to connect end-users to the Internet backbone. That definition is modified again in this bill, also to ensure that States do not tax the Internet backbone. Why does Congress have to make this change again? Because eight States (AL, FL, IL, MN, MO, NH, PA, WA) continue to tax the Internet backbone, despite Congress’ clear admonitions to the contrary.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.