Posted on 10/25/2007 8:23:37 PM PDT by SmithL
WASHINGTON, (AP) -- The Senate on Thursday night approved a seven-year extension of a moratorium on state and local taxes on Internet access.
The Senate voice vote came a little over a week after the House passed a bill calling for a four-year moratorium. The tax ban, first approved in 1998, is set to expire Nov. 1.
Attempts in both the House and Senate to make the ban permanent in recent weeks were unsuccessful despite strong support for the idea.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Well a moratorium would be better, but half a loaf here is better than none. It’s amazing they have managed to keep the Internet tax free for as long as they have.
No, this is not a situation where half a loaf is better. This needs to be permanent. Look at what we face in 2010 when the Bush tax cuts expire. We are going to all be hammered in devastating fashion.
Marginal rates will return to 1990’s values. Dividends and capital gains lose their favorable status. And you can rest assured that occasion will be used to raise the rates even higher, to get the pain for the democrats handled all at once, presumably in the first 2 mos of a Hillary presidency. She will simply ask to accelerate the 2010 date by 1 yr. It will be early in the term and 2 yrs before next election day.
That is the price of those cuts not being permanent. If they were permanent, it looks like a tax increase. By letting them expire they make it look like something planned all along.
Herein lies the problem. Someone's not doing what they were hired to do.
Not me. I'm living in poverty. I only make $70,000 a year.
/s
Good. Glad they passed it.
What tax is not being levied? I have been charged sales tax on plenty of internet transactions.
I think it is up to the retail store to decide that.
It depends on if the business has a physical presence in your state.
Ping!
Anybody got a list of congresscritters who voted for and against it?
Actually, there’s no such thing as “permanent” when it comes to a legislative body. Any vote by the majority can be undone by another majority the next day or next month or next year.
Even things that are ‘constitutionally protected’ can be thwarted as we have seen over the past 200 or so years.
There is a political difference between raising taxes and letting a temporary tax cut expire and it is astonishing to me that this was ever allowed to happen.
By the way, here is my informal projected time line of the first few months a Hillary presidency. Note the tax event:
The Hillary First Term
January, 2009 Inauguration
Hillary orders the US military to remove all troops from Iraq. All aid for Iraq, with the exception of money spent to relocate Iraqi citizens who are at risk of their lives because of past cooperation with the US, is shut off. Code Pink applauds this “courageous and deeply human decision.”
February, 2009
Announced retirement of USSC Justice Stevens. Hillary quickly moves to nominate a Judge With a long history of intelligent that shows profound respect for stare decisis, meaning precedents that establish “settled law”, including the Roe v. Wade “uber precedent.” Confirmation of the judge takes place by a vote of 72 - 26 with 2 abstentions. Arlen Spector votes NO, having been personally offended in the hearings.
March, 2009
Hillary’s administration floats a proposal to fund single payer, government administered health care with money “raised” via the expiration of the “Bush tax cuts for the rich”, which is already scheduled to take place in 2010. This will return marginal tax rates to 1990’s levels for salary and other forms of ordinary income. Taxes on all capital gains, and all dividends, long term or short term, will not return to their levels of the 1990’s, but rather instead will be taxed to the highest marginal rate of the tax code. Analysis finds this will not cover the total cost of the health care proposal. The difference is proposed to be made up by a single, one-time-only 15% tax on assets in personal IRAs and 401Ks. A study is released stating that “most assets in these accounts are held by ‘the rich’”
May, 2009
Hillary dispatches her Secretary of State to Iran, for direct negotiations about what aid can be provided from the US to Iran to encourage “re-emphasis” of their nuclear program to one focused on peaceful uses. Iran’s leadership holds a high profile photo op showing their foreign minister
cordially welcoming the Secy of State. At the end of the visit the Foreign Minister and the Secretary of State call their talks “constructive and useful.” Hillary, in Washington, announces “a new era of respectful rather than arrogant American foreign policy”.
July, 2009
USSC Justice Clarence Thomas has a heart attack and dies. Hillary calls him a dedicated, hard working jurist and promises to nominate a judge who is as dedicated and hard working.
August, 2009
Oil hits $120/barrel. Gasoline prices surpass $5/gallon. GDP for the first quarter is revised to a reported -2.5% and the 2nd quarter number of - 4% is left unchanged. A cyclical recession is declared and Hillary urges Congress to accelerate termination of the ruinous Bush tax cuts so that the economy can grow again and “fund programs important to America”.
Hillary nominates her husband, Bill Clinton, to replace Judge Clarence Thomas on the USSC.
September, 2009 Iran invades Iraq. Iraqi government appeals to the UN for help are elevated to urgent status within the UN Security Council. Consideration of the appeals is scheduled for discussion in 2 weeks time. Iran’s Air Force bombs the homes of senior officers of Iraq’s armed forces as well as those of members of the Iraqi Parliament. Iraq’s Prime Minister asks for air support from the US. Hillary says no. Iraq’s Prime Minister begs Gordon Brown in the UK for help. Brown begins preparations for the RAF to intercede. Hillary contacts him and informs him she has been assured by the Iranian president that the current operations are strictly limited to attacks along the border in the north where Kurdish rebels have made incursions into Iran. Hillary urges Brown in the strongest terms not to take any action to “aggravate the situation”. Over the next 48 hours Iranian troops move through and take up positions 35 miles northwest of the northernmost suburbs of Basra. Basra citizenry are informed that they are now residents of Iran. All of the southeast oil fields of Iraq are in Iranian hands.
Freelance photographers capture Iranian troops raping Iraqi women in Basra. The Iranian president calls the photos faked and manufactured by the US President and expresses his outrage both privately to her and publicly in the press. He calls it an “affront to Persian dignity” and announces that what had been intended to be merely a temporary incursion to discourage the cross border attacks Iran had been suffering
will now extend “some period of time appropriate to the level of affront given”.
In a separate development, Hamas announces it has acquired nuclear weapons of a size deliverable by truck from a “friendly Muslim source” and orders the evacuation of southern Israel. Iran applauds this development and makes the pointed observation that Islam now has a way to respond to American arrogance and insults.
Hillary publicly assures Vladimir Putin that the US will not be re-inserting itself into “the regional affairs” of Iraq and Iran. She calls for a peaceful settlement of the “dispute over Basra”. She also submits a request for $15 billion in “Palestinian Aid”.
Great, I missed this until I searched.
From his email News letter.
Cornyn: Internet Tax Moratorium Extension Victory For Taxpayers and Consumers
Friday, October 26, 2007
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a member of the Senate Budget Committee, made the following statement Friday regarding passage of a bill to extend the moratorium on multiple and discriminatory taxes on Internet commerce for seven years:
“This is a victory for taxpayers and consumers. The Internet is an important economic engine, which also helps users learn and communicate. The tax moratorium has helped the Internet expand and has protected entrepreneurs from burdensome taxes. I hope Congress will act quickly to reach an agreement on the extension and continue to protect the Internet from multiple and discriminatory taxes.”
Sen. Cornyn serves on the Armed Services, Judiciary and Budget Committees. In addition, he is Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Ethics. He serves as the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee’s Immigration, Border Security and Refugees subcommittee and the Armed Services Committee’s Airland subcommittee.
Yep! That’s why I never have put any money into a Roth IRA!
This moratorium is for taxes on internet access. Like all the little nickel-and-time taxes on your phone bill. Taxes on online purchases is a separate issue.
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