Ask Slashdot: Should the US Government Tax Email? 289
Contramac writes "I've been hearing lately that the government wants to place a tax on outgoing email because more people are writing email than postal mail. Should this or other taxes on the Internet take place? Should the Internet community enter politics and make a stand of how they feel? I'm sure there is or have been some legislature about this topic somewhere. Myself and maybe other people out there want to find out what others opinions about this matter are. What is yours? " This is something we are going to have to face sooner or later, but I don't see how the US Government can justify it. A large portion of this infrastructure is based on commercial resources, not governmental ones.
Re:revolution Re:I am getting so fed up w/ the gov (Score:1)
Right, you can't vote Gates out but you do have a choice to use his software. Do you have a choice for who's in office (vote the gov out as you said)? No, you do know that most people didn't want the current president, right? Yes in two elections MOST people didn't want him. So since you really can't effect the gov by voting, and buisness don't have armed swat teams breaking down doors and killing people, who is a bigger threat?
Re:Logistics anyone? (Score:1)
Payment for doing nothing.... (Score:1)
April Fools (Score:1)
Good idea (Score:1)
What I would *not* mind is.... (Score:1)
Re:Like the Gov. is losing money (Score:1)
From the estamp FAQ... (Score:1)
You can read the whole FAQ here [estamp.com]
3. Is E-Stamp available for the Mac? The initial version of E-Stamp Internet Postage works with Windows. But we are considering a follow-on release that will include support for Macs. We are certainly committed to providing products that meet our customers' needs. Please check out our website periodically to find out about new products, features and technology partnerships.
Hell, I bet It won't work with W2K.
8. Can E-Stamp be used internationally? Initially, the E-Stamp Internet Postage service is only available in the U.S. However, we do intend to make the service available in other countries in the future. In fact, we have already had discussions with a number of postal authorities and corporations around the globe, including several in Europe.
Or if another country starts doing this I can print foreign stamps....
12. Do digital stamps expire? The postage you purchase does not "expire" since it's the same as currency. However, once you print it onto an envelope, label, or document, U.S. Postal Service regulations require that you mail it within 24 hours.
So... In effect... They do expire...
Re:Why??? (Score:1)
Yeah, you're right. Ever notice how people start speaking more freely after a couple of free beers?
Adam Schumacher
moderate this post up. (Score:1)
- A.P.
--
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad
Re:From the estamp FAQ... (Score:1)
In only the same way that using Pitney-Bowes postmarks expire in the same way. It's not like
a stamp that you buy at the post office. Sounds more like a stamp and postmark.
ROAD RUNNER WONT LET THEM! =] (Score:1)
Erm, this is private sector, folks. (Score:1)
--
I noticed
ridiculous (Score:1)
How and why? (Score:1)
Second, why does the government care? Didn't they let go of the USPS and make it its own company and not government run?
Can we get them to tax SPAM mail at $1000 per non-solicited emailing instead, and give that money to improve network stability, and build the future of the internet?
my drunken throughts
Perpetuate the myth (Score:1)
Re:Yes to taxes! (Score:1)
It appears that *you* don't have a problem with those taxes--please try not to speak for me.
Property and income taxes are ridiculous. The government shouldn't have any expenditures as a direct result of my working and earning money, and thus they shouldn't get a chunk of it. Now, taxes on gasoline are different--I'm using that gas to drive on roads that are maintained by the state or the federal government (for the benefit of the community at large), so it's only fair that I pitch in a little to keep them working. E-mail, on the other hand, I've already paid my bit for. I pay my ISP, I pay my telephone company, I get to use e-mail.
Where does the government get involved there? It shouldn't be anywhere at all! I don't recall any passage in any document anywhere that says that the US government should be able to regulate or even necessarily provide for alternative mechanisms to transfer messages from one person to another. Bah!
Not a HOAX! Secret psych test! (Score:1)
But how you react to it says something deep and profound about your mental health (something which "they" couldn't test without asking strange-sounding questions you probably wouldn't answer). So, the fact that such an obvious fraud appears on slashdot must mean that someone is reading the responses, collating them, and preparing a report on how many nerds are schizophrenics.
This reminds me of a newspaper column a few years ago in which the columnist argued that the fact that he had fallen for a hoax about the government because he believed they wanted to overregulate showed that government was bad. Of course, I learned much more about him than I did about government regulation.
Emminent Domain? (Score:1)
sarcasm mode ON
Well, since the government gives huge amounts of money to big buisiness in the form of tax breaks, they _deserve_ this money
sarcasm mode OFF
Just my two centibucks.
Ohhh I sure do hope this is true... (Score:1)
Do we get to throw a shipment of PC's into Boston harbor now?? Fun. Fun.
People would just use things like instant messaging or some mutant of traditional email just outside of the legal defination of email. Mutilated or faked headers? Java based portals with certificate uploads on every site? More jobs for net admins?! More Fun! ;)
Where would we be if Al Gore had not invented the internet? What else could chalange us like this?
Interesting thought. (Score:1)
The government complains that email is 'cutting into' the postal service? Isn't that a GOOD THING? Email, unlike the postal service, is efficient. It is fast. It is cheap. If the postal service is being used less, then by all means cut back the number of employees or whatever it takes - cut back on the infrastructure. Don't do an ass-backwards thing like tax the superior technology so that people will continue to use the old, inferior way.
Is it me, or does the government's primary goal seem not to be to provide needed services, but to ensure its own bloat?
And yes, I'm sure it's a hoax, but regardless given the bloated government we have, it's almost plausible that they would attempt something like this if it were technologically feasible (which, as others have said, it is not).
- Darchmare
- Axis Mutatis, http://www.axismutatis.net
Re:Implementation? (Score:1)
Or to allow the millions of Americans who don't have E-mail to communicate with each other, or for people to send bill payments without paying extra bank fees for "online" payment systems, or for me to be able to send a birthday card to a friend without paying for FedEx or UPS rates...
The USPS isn't dead yet, nor should it be. We've got a LONG way to go before E-mail replaces the postal service...
Re:actually (Score:1)
Re:Logistics anyone? (Score:1)
As for taxing the sender, even without hacks to sendmail, it's trivial to monitor port 25 -- which affects "real" SMTP sessions and spoofed SMTP (sorry, telnetting in will not win you anything except the Booby Prize for not having written a script in perl to do it for you). While individual Linux (etc.) users may be able to run sendmail on an alternate port, they WILL need the cooperation of an existing MTA (listening on the well-known port), or they will need to stop corresponding with any of their friends who don't also have the modified daemon.
That said, it'd be horrifically difficult to offer solid evidence of a mail message being sent without some form of authorization. SMTP is essentially a one-way protocol; there's nothing to stop it from being spoofed.
Enough of the technical: I won't even start in on the social problems this could cause.
OK - Tax email - I'll send freemail! (Score:1)
Maybe they will realize this and do something a little more useful like create a new epost office that offers guaranteed delivery and/or legally binding email with digital signatures or something. Charge for something new instead of leaching off of something that's already in place. Wouldn't it be amazing if the government actually did something clever?
It seems to me like the amount of energy it would take to put a system of taxation in place for email would be enough to create something usefull.
Re:totally 100% unrelated (Score:1)
This is getting to be really sad. I sent in a technical question about cutting edge technology and how to tie this into a project that would get linux into a school districts network to start replacing the NT boxes (it was about the HP SureStore tape drive that was purchased for a backup device on a web server), but low level Jerry Springer Talk Show style internet trash like seriously questioning the validity of spam content makes it on slashdot instead?
I suppose it is all objective.
Re:Did You Know...? (Score:1)
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seumas.com
Re:Passing Notes In Class? (Score:1)
Actually, it was several years ago that I heard it stated in a documentary segment by 60 Minutes or 20/20 regarding the USPS. According the them, some 20% of all mail never reaches it's intended destination.
I doubt they pulled that number out of a hat. And from my personal experience over the last year, it seems more and more legitimate.
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seumas.com
Never mind the money issue. (Score:1)
knows how much you email.
Squick!
Just don't call it e-mail anymore ! (Score:1)
Well, tax could be a good thing against spammers
Freaker / TuC
This was a practical joke for morons ... (Score:1)
subject. One originated from Canada and one
from the USA. Names like MPs were changed
to senators and representatives to make it
look more US like. The bottom line is that
it is a hoax put on the net to get morons
going and make sure they annoy the politicians.
The representative and senator responsible for
the said bill don't even exist. The bill is the
same as the one in Canada, the said MP probably
doesn't exist either.
At work we had someone who posted the letter
on the bulletin board. I didn't take it out
because I thought it was funny that so many
idiots would bite to it. And I don't care much
for the local republicans that we're stuck with.
At election time this is straight party stuff
and I have no choice except the senator and
president. Every one else on the ballot are
republicans. It is amusing to think of those
guys being harrassed by idiots who think they're
about to be taxed on their EMAIL.
We had another hoax just about as amusing this
one a while back about the long distance versus
local calls. A lot of morons fell for that
one. Apparently the politicians got more calls
about that one than about the president's
impeachment trial.
As we say in French : "Juste une trappe à cons"
in other words, it's just a trap for morons.
Re:Now I KNOW Slashdot regulars are imbeciles! (Score:1)
Just take a bit of time to read the article(s).
The legislators listed don't even exist.
The title is indeed correct. There are a lot
of imbeciles reading news in general. The fact
that this moronic stuff has been denied over
and over doesn't mean anything to you obviously.
Re:Yes, USPS should be sold off. (Score:1)
If all mail cost a dollar and a half to send, everyone with a computer would pay their bills electronically over the web and everyone without a computer would pay their bills over the phone via credit card and/or checking account autodeposit. Companies that for some reason had to send out printed statements would start billing in six-month increments instead of one-month increments, or would hire their own delivery service rather than using the mail. People would use email and telephone instead of personal letters even more than they do now.
And dozens of local companies would start competing using the existing FedEx and UPS infrastructure for long-range travel and local couriers or pick-up locations for local delivery.
Really, it's ridiculous that mail is as expensive as it is now. Privatisation couldn't help but lower prices.
Yes, USPS should be sold off. (Score:1)
If we simply get rid of the laws that maintain the remainder of the postal monopoly, whatever private companies enter the breech will undoubtedly be able to provide the same level of service for half the cost the Post Office charges. So no, there's no reason for the Post Office to exist as a government-granted monopoly service provider. Sell it off!
Side note: when UPS first started delivering packages, the Post Office claimed that it couldn't make money delivering packages and did this at a loss, subsidized by first class mail. UPS managed to make a profit providing nationwide coverage for significantly less than the post office was then charging. There's no reason to think First Class mail is any different in this regard; a profit-oriented company could undoubtedly improve things.
Also, the Pony Express was essentially a private first-class mail-delivery service, one of several of that era.
regarding fixed-rate pricing (Score:1)
Note that UPS and FedEx and Airborne currently don't bother to price discriminate based on location. They could charge different prices and certainly would if it were profitable to do so...
Also note that in many rural areas UPS already has better local coverage than the Post Office does; UPS generally drives a truck out to your door while the Post Office only delivers to the nearest "Mail Stop" which might be many miles away.
Yes, please moderate it up!! (Score:1)
Of course they still use Apache to serve their pages... :-)
-Glen Raphael
(I'd moderate it up myself, but I've already posted in this thread).
Another way of thinking that's become irrelevant (Score:1)
The same is true of pretty much any proposed measure to tax Internet users directly, whether it's a tariff on email messages, bandwidth usage, commercial transactions, or anything else. It's trivially easy to make my sending or receiving email look to any monitor like a bout of web surfing; in fact, sometimes that's exactly what it is. Traffic-analysis-defeating measures, combined with decent crypto/stego, can defeat pretty much anything a snooper would throw your way.
The only way a (more-or-less democratic--totalitarians have a lot of leeway here) government might get away with this sort of thing is by imposing huge duties on backbone providers, based on traffic or aggregate supportable bandwidth, who would then pass the increase in their operating costs downstream through ISPs until it eventually reached the consumer. I wouldn't enjoy seeing that, but it's a lot more likely than an individual tax on users.
Post Office Growth (Score:1)
Re:Logistics anyone? (Score:1)
I would start ranting about the immorality or whatnot of the idea, too, but that doesn't really matter, anymore....
Re:actually (Score:1)
No, the USPS is a government corporation, like, for example, the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation), formed by an act of Congress. It's quasi-independent in terms of its operations, but it still must refer back to Congress for significant changes (such as postal rates).
Note for folks who slept through civics class: the Post Office is actually mandated by the US constitution. Another tidbit: because it is legally required to charge the same rate for first-class mail, regardless of costs, the USPS has been given an exclusive right to carry such mail. Given that the US Senate would have to approve a change in this, and that high-cost states have as many senators (though far fewer people) than low-cost states, you aren't likely to see it happen any time soon.
Way to go, baby!!! (Score:1)
Sure! What better way to insure that the US will paint itself in a corner???
-- ----------------------------------------------
Vive le logiciel... Libre!!!
My kingdom for a list server (Score:1)
I have, and continue to run an e-mail list server [elemental.org] out of my home (and friend's homes, at times) for the last five years. I shudder to think what an impact even a small surcharge would have on me now that the outgoing volume of my machine exceeds 5 megs per day.
Not that I particularly worry about this coming about, since such a such an action here in the United States would instantly be responded to by a deluge of complaints to legislature by people in all walks of life who use e-mail in their day to day lives.
Unless, of course, the cries of "Wolf! Wolf! 601B!" have suitably dulled our senses by then.
Lets hope not.
--
Re:Did You Know...? (Score:1)
What's scary is that some people might actually believe you.
People, don't accept rumours without reasonably trustworthy sources. Don't trust those with 'em either -- people can make mistakes or just plain lie.
Double tax? (Score:1)
Re:Logistics anyone? (Score:1)
I do not support the taxing of email . . . just wanted to get that out of the way.
Onto my real point. How would they do that? Would ISPs be required to log all of the email messages that people send? This alone would be a huge task to put to ISPs that would cost them money. Second would be the issue of logging such emails from the standpoint of privacy.
I do not support the taxing of personal income . . . just wanted to get that out of the way.
Onto my real point. How would they do that? Would employers be required to log all of the personal income that employees receive? This alone would be a huge task to put to employers that would cost them money. Second would be the issue of logging such personal income from the standpoint of privacy.
Once legislators get involved, the logistics are not so infeasible as you may think... (Or, rather, their feasibility is no longer relevant.)
Re:Logistics anyone? (Score:1)
Every c-mail everywhere in the world is logged (for "taxation" purposes). See no problem someone enforcing this on email. And your suggestion basically sais that we should all pity the US post office for having to maintain accurate accoutning records, while the ISPs should not. And none has ever raised any concerns (and remained alive and kicking) on privacy grounds here.
How would the taxes be collected? Would it be added on to the bill you pay your ISP, would it be put on your W2? What if your ISP was not your email provider (free email abounds)?
NO more free email.
Needless to say, I think that it would cost twice as much to manage the thing as it would gain in revenue.
So? Who cares about the dead fish
The other question that comes to mind is what about all of us who run Linux and Sendmail? I run my own sendmail and IMAP server on a dedicated connection. I am about to give a couple of friends account because they are moving. Would I be required to log the number of email that left my box (something I really don't know how or want to do), and then collect the money from them and me (something that I WON'T do).
Indeed you will. Being obliged by law. Since when an american has contradicted IRS ;-)
This is a really bad idea IMHO. If someone would explain the logistics behind such a proposal, at least it could be debatable from an ethical/political standpoint as to whether or not it would be beneficial, but without any such logistics worked out, it's nothing . . .
The logistics are very simple. Any taxation information is accessible to the all kinds of agencies with three and four letter initials. As long as they have proved unable to control the matters otheriwse they can easily regain control using the taxation as an immediate threat
Wrong (Score:1)
Not haha, scary (Score:1)
Don't be stupid (Score:1)
It's a hoax, people.... (Score:1)
As idiotic as our government can be at times, I still find it hard to believe that anyone would even consider lending credibility to such an idiotic idea. It's simply absurd in the most extreme fashion.
Urban Legends has a writeup [about.com] about this particular hoax, with a link to the USPS rebuttal of the idiotic message.
Hopefully, no one takes this thing seriously, but I fear it already too late, judging by the amount of /.'s resources wasted by this thread.
Re:Like the Gov. is losing money (Score:1)
Re:Oh, please! (Score:1)
Substitute ISP for employers and you'll see how they could easily do it. Then when some ISP decides not to cooperate, they go to the next upstream link and shut them down. Amazing how quickly the people will fall in line...
Even if this is (and I think it is) false, never underestimate the evil that any organization with endless pockets can contrive. As noted "power corrupts..."
Re:THEY ONLY HAVE TO TAX THE SOFTWARE (Score:1)
Re:Why even discuss it? (Score:1)
*OLD* Hoax! (Score:1)
Please stop perpetuating this stupid spam.
Re:*OLD* Hoax! correction (Score:1)
The details: the original Canadian message claimed that a non-existant Toronto Star editorial sang the praises of a non-existant government Bill (bearing an incorrect Bill ID number) to tax email, which was being fought by a non-existant lawyer at a non-existant firm at a non-existant address in Toronto.
The US version of the message simply changed the Toronto Star to the Washington Post, the Canadian Government to the US Government, and the law office address (but not name) to an American address.
Impossible to enforce (Score:1)
Re:that's just insane (Score:1)
I guess I should buy stock in %country name% based webmail sites.
Re:actually (Score:1)
Re:I am getting so fed up w/ the gov. (Score:1)
They've done it before. Ever heard of income tax... it's unconstitutional as well. Didn't stop them before. If they really want to they'll do it, constitution be damned.
---
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will deserve neither and lose both."
Logistics... (Score:1)
Of course some government official is probably reading this and saying "Hey, good idea. I didn't think of that." So if this ever happens, could some moderator go back and delete this post so I don't catch the blame
pay tax on spam? no way! (Score:1)
the day I have to pay for spam received is the day I stop using e-mail altogether.
This is a hoax (Score:1)
Re:I am getting so fed up w/ the gov. (Score:1)
As I remember the bill that they say in the text, doesn't even exist. The prefix is not the prefix used by the US government. the lawmaker who supposedly is pushing the bill does not exist.
They are playing on your paranoia. Spend less time listening to the guys from Christian Idenity , the GOP, and Neo Nazi groups, and start researching these stories before you open your yap.
Re:revolution Re:I am getting so fed up w/ the gov (Score:1)
Once again, it is a hoax. Cool down, relax, drink decafe, and Stay off the jolt for a day or two.
while you are doing that, I am off to Tennessee looking for hot sex and good BBQ, not necessarily in that order.
Big Business is a much bigger threat than the government. You can vote the government out, You can't vote Bill Gates out.
Re:Like the Gov. is losing money (Score:1)
All they need to do is seach Thomas to see if the proposed law actually exists. The law's prefix is not a prefix used by the US government.
Use your heads people!!! Don't let the ultra right manipulate you!
This is a joke... right? (Score:1)
The govt. has nothing to do with bandwidth usage.
E-mail is not theirs to tax...
I can't belive you're all taking this seriously.
If they tax it... we'll sue... it's unconstitutional and totally
and completely insane.
Re:April Fools (Score:1)
THIS IS FUD, ANTI-GOVERNMENT FUD (Score:2)
This is an insipid anti-government fantasy. Can you show me one shred of evicence that this idea is being seriously considered by anyone in Congress, or the Post Office, or anywhere else, for that matter? This would NEVER happen, EVER. Anyone who proposed this would make a laughingstock of themselves, and the idea would quickly be forgotten.
Last I heard, the US Postal Service was doing very well financially, and the cost of postage from the USPS is still much cheaper than the cost of other countries' postal services. Regular letter, 33 cents from anywhere in the US to anywhere else. Can't beat it.
Yet, I'm sure that there are plenty of people out there who are happy to believe this FUD, because some people are ready to believe abolutely anything negative you ever say about the government, regardless how completely wrong or unfounded it is. Our Congress is scary, but people who dream up these ridiculous scenarios are a lot scarier to me.
If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go back downstairs into my concrete bunker, where the jack-booted government thugs won't be able to reach me. My killer robot dog biff, which runs Linux, will protect me from the IRS email-stamp stormtroopers. They'll have to pry my email client from my cold, dead fingers.
Implementation? (Score:2)
How exactly would the uberidiots in D.C. manage to track e-mail usage in the first place? The costs of monitoring traffic, let alone collecting the taxes, would probably exceed any potential revenues.
This is probably either a "mature" Internet hoax, or a stupid scheme dreamed up by bureaucrats worried about losing their gravy jobs. As a matter of fact, I can't see any reason for the USPS to exist outside of high volume, low speed junk mail delivery. What little business they haven't lost to e-mail and fax machines is divided up between Fedx and UPS. The Postal Service should be sold for scrap, and their functions should be farmed out to the lowest bidder.
E-mail will not replace Snail Mail (Score:2)
to show that email can never replace snail mail
(If anything, email is replacing the telephone,
and we already see how the industry is fighting
that).
Bills - How the heck would this work? The bill is my receipt for services
rendered, and without the paper copy, I have
no prove that they provided me services, and
thus, I can ignore paying it
we're getting close to e-bill payments, but
until every American is wired, snail mail will
still exist.
Cards - I'm not necessarily
prompting the greeting card industry, but
the online greeting card sites will never replace
the cards you send out on holidays and for
the all important Mother's Day. (They may
suppliment these cards, but think of the heck you'd pay if you only sent an electronic card...
Magazines - Magazines will
never be ousted by online versions until you can
drag the computer into the bathroom or the
bus to work. A substancial bulk of snail mail
is for this.
Soliciatations - Nobody likes
spam, but surprising, snail mail marketing works
more than email marketing. Take a look at
how far Publishier's Clearinghouse got before
they were basically punched in the stomach.
Besides, I'd much rather get a soliciation in
the snail mail box, as that can be tosses with
no cost to me, as opposed to email spam that
may cost me online connection time.
Email and Snail Mail are two different worlds;
there's some overlap, but the two services work
simulataneously as opposed to competitively.
Re:Don't be stupid (Score:2)
Alternately, web-based e-mail systems become more popular, and again, all the logs and auditing go completely to waste.
If it's logs of just traffic going through the ISP's SMTP relay, people learn to connect to open relays elsewhere on the net. I'm sure there are public relays around, still.
If it's byte-count that gets taxed, e-mail programs might suddenly sport GZIP or BZIP2, which wouldn't avoid the tax, but would severely reduce the money made. If everyone did that, the cost of collecting it might exceed the money made, which would kill the scheme very quickly.
actually (Score:2)
--
The only discussion about this is a scam (Score:2)
Most of the e-mail forwards going around the Internet refer to Bill "602P" when they're talking about it.
The FCC actually put out a statement on it, the hoax had spread so far:
http://www.fcc.g ov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/Factsheets/nominute.htm
I hope this will stop the waste on here even discussing it. Maybe Andover should hire someone to check up on these silly stories on here before getting people all worked up.
The originator of this hoax was a lawyer here in the U.S. known for starting these hoaxes, unfortunately pre-coffee I can't think of his name, although anyone curious could probably find it with a few minutes searching on dejanews.com
Did You Know...? (Score:2)
Did you know that it is illegal to use FedEx to send anything other than "time-critical" material or packages?
I kid you not. The government has fined many companies hundreds of thousands of dollars for using FedEx to send non-critical packages. The USPS has a government-imposed monopoly on low-priority letter delivery. Attempt to evade the monopoly, and you will be fined.
Schwab
Passing Notes In Class? (Score:2)
There are so many points you could argue on this one, but they're all moot unless someone can explain what authority the government has to try to do this. This is like Microsoft coming into Real Networks and saying "Hey, we aren't making enough money for ourselves so we're going to start charging you everytime someone plays one of your media files with your Real Player."
Seriously, I can't even begin to understand how they can just move in on something and say "Oh, hey -- let's tax this". What's next, taxing me evertime I read a book? Even though they didn't publish it, shelve it, write it, read it, sell it, or anything else?
What if I use a SMTP server that is located outside of the country? What if I send an 'email' as a file via ICQ instead? How about Usenet? How about charging me evertime I download a post from there? How about charging me everytime I make my own post? Maybe even charging me for every data-packet transmitted while playing Quake or KingPin?
How about students? What if you send a personal email from work? How are they going to charge you? What if you don't have a credit card or checking account to pay from? How am I going to contact administrators regarding spammers who are hitting my accounts? What if you don't use an actual SMTP server directly and you use Hotmail or some other form of web-based email?
I send approximately 20 emails per day. That's 600 per month. The average message is around 3k. So I'm transfering less than 1.5MB's per month in email. If they charge me a penny per messag, I'm paying 6 bucks to send 1.5MB's of data?
What's next -- do they want to take over all of the email servers and have one central post-office run by the USPS? (The same people who fail to deliver some 20% of all letters!)
What about FEDEX? Do they want to start taxing me for using that service? Sure FEDEX is more reliable, friendlier, and professional, but it takes away from Uncle Sam's almighty dollar (seeing how Uncle Sam is becoming one big fat corporation).
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seumas.com
Re:What I would *not* mind is.... (Score:2)
I'd rather hand a letter to a stranger on the street and ask them to deliver it for me. It's just as likely to get there as with the USPS.
On another note, isn't the USPS actually a company? It's just like Amtrak, from what I understand. They are a business, but have the backing of the government to remain a monopoly on standard mail deliver. As such, how can the government back a business in levying a tax to support said monopolistic business for a service not even provided by them?
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seumas.com
This would kill the 'net (Score:2)
Also, how would you define "ISP"? If I'm in a computer lab, and I do FTP between two different computers in the lab, is that internet traffic? How about if they are in different rooms? Different buildings on the same campus? The decentralized nature of the 'net would make it difficult to determine which transactions should be taxed. And unless they come up with a clear standard as to who has to meter usage, it would be relatively easy to fall through the cracks. The attempts to solve this kind of problem would do a lot of damage to the net, and would result in stagnation and rising costs. This is a very bad idea.
Because they CANT (Score:2)
---------------------------
I could be wrong, but I don't think so... (Score:2)
The last I read about this (which I admit is early 1997), the exact opposite is true, which is that 1st Class and priority mail essentially subsidize the delivery of bulk e-mail (or at least the junk mail end of things), with other bulk rate mailings for business (zip sorted, 500 piece or larger) somewhere around the breakeven point.
Anyway, I don't want to get in a pissing match about statistics, but am wondering if you could point me to your sources of information so that I can update my knowledge base.
Re:Payment for doing nothing.... (Score:2)
Us postal workers bust their butts everyday. The lazy government worker is a thing of the past. My route is 10 miles long. I have to fight off the pitbulls, crack dealers, and drunks all day so you can get your Linux Journal.
Anyway, the post office is making a profit, they have embraced Linux, and QNX to run their OCR's. They do use NT for non essential uses. the supervisors have W98 at their desks. That keeps them busy and confused, and out of the carriers hair. Notice the number of killings at the post offices have fallen? The supervisors are so busy trying to keep their Wintel boxes running they don't have time to harrass the workers.
I am a mail carrier and LinuxPPC user. And so far, I have turned two fellow workers to the Mac and one to Linux, and one has gotten the hots for Free BDS.
-----------------------------------------------
Fight mediocracy, don't use Microsoft products.
We need to draw a line in the sand. (Score:2)
Likewise, when I use the telephone, I pay the phone company to be able to use the service of the telephone line. This is taxed by both the federal and state government.
When I by a pen, I pay a sales tax to purchase the pen. The paper that I write I paid sales tax on also.
Do I need to pay an additional tax because I happen to write on that paper with a pen??? Or do I pay an additional tax because I happen to sing on the phone instead of 'talk' on the phone.
The question is, do I have to pay a tax on something that I've already paid a tax on the first place, that being the phone line. Is double taxation fair?
What's the difference between me singing, using Spanish, or using audio packets??
Are we smart enough to see this as an insult to our sense of freedom??? Are we angry enough to value our vote??? Are we persistent enough as a group to take the trouble and time to elect people to represent us and our views to office???
is it technically possible? (Score:2)
aside from the "honor system", this seems impossible.
how can the US govt tell which packets are eMail without wiretapping every single section if the inet backbone? they can't
they could, in theory, install software on every single mailserver in the US that maintained a count of every person's eMail activities, but how would they enforce that that software stay running? they couldn't
what about anonymous mailers? if i don't like someone, i can just run up a $100 bill on their eMail tax real quickly..
what would a tax like this do to "free" eMail services? would you have to submit a tax form every time you signed up for one?
i can imagine the list would go on and on..
i just don't see how the internet can be taxed for anything other than e-Commerce and an additional tax on ISP bills.
just my 2
-fred
THe Post office says... (Score:2)
Generally, the post-office is a lot more than just a mail delivery center though; you get yr passport there can register to vote, and a lot of other government services use the Post office as their outlet.
In addition, though the web has been the hottest topic o' the century (well, except if you lived before the second half of this decade..then it was OJ, then the Moon, then JFK, then Charles lindbergh....) email doesn't have the legal status, nor the widespread use of good ole paper. Plus, email doesn't have a home base like paper mail would. What about international eMail, etc.?
This all assumes there'd be a way to track it, and so far, echelon hasn't been admitted to here in the states. Since the internet is composed of a million different servers from different secotrs of the economy, public and private, it'd be hard to track eMail, let alone pick out its originator, unless the ISP got involved, or servers were tracked...anyways, the more this is thought about, the more it becomes another internet rumor...or some stupid politicians...
chimchim
Spoon!
E-mail hoaxes (Score:2)
It's just a chain-e-mail hoax.
*Happy Days* are here again!
Actually this has been proposed before (Score:2)
was the UN a little bit ago. Some bureucrats without anything else to do wrote up a little paper on how a penny an email would solve world hunger or some other BS. It's nothing more than a way for the UN to stuff its pockets imho.
If this was seriously proposed in congress I'm sure they'd just add a percentage tax to net access like they do to cigs and booze regardless of how much email your little fingers can type out.
Fiction (Score:2)
This UN plan was real, but as it turns out, they had heard the USPS was considering it, and that's where they got the idea. As the UN doesn't actually have any taxing authority, this was pretty amusing anyway.
Please file this away as one of the many internet myths that we shouldn't waste our time on. There are many more important issues like gov't encryption controls, the FBI restricting the growth of technology because of security fears (they have a lot of friends up here) and Scientologists attacking web-speech.
Internet 3 (Score:2)
Forget e-mail, watch out for the sales tax (Score:2)
But, there is a legitimate possibility of a tax being levied on the Internet and that is a sales tax. Senator Fritz Hollings [senate.gov] has introduced legislation that would levy a national sales tax of 5 percent on every interstate sale. While this covers mail-order catalogs and telephone sales, there is no doubt that its main focus is e-commerce.
You can read the text of the bill here [loc.gov].
The bill would take the money generated by the national tax and fund grants to pay teachers' salaries. It flies in the face of Rep. Chris Cox's Internet Tax Freedon Act, which called for a three-year moritorium on taxation of the Internet.
A side note
While nobody likes new taxes, they may eventually be neccessary. The primary beneficiary of sales taxes are state and local governments, not the big, bad feds everyone loves to hate. Sales taxes represent more than 36 percent of the budget of state and local governments.
That pays for things like schools, police and firefighters. We have to have those services. If the economy moves more and more to the e-commerce model, local governments will either tax this new economy or die.
But, that being said, I think we are a while off before taxation becomes neccessary. While e-commerce is growing at an incredible rate, it is still a small part of the total economy, and we don't want to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.
We do not have an absolute right to a tax-free Internet. Intellectual freedom? Yes. Academic freedom? Yes. Freedom from taxation? It is up to us to look at the situation and use our heads. No one likes new taxes, but we all like things like roads, schools and the ability to walk on the streets late at night.
HipNerd
totally 100% unrelated (Score:2)
Re:Logistics anyone? (Score:3)
Would the tax be on the sender or the receiver? If the sender, how could you do that? E-mail just works through the SMTP protocol, which is trivial. Any Linux user probably has an SMTP server on their machine, and any who don't can spoof it with telnet.
If the receiver, I can see the anti-spam groups being up in arms about that one. Can you imagine being taxed, by the Government, for receiving a get-rich-quick mail??? IMHO, that just won't fly with anyone.
Free e-mail servers may move off-shore, if taxes are imposed, and there is NOTHING that can be done to stop them.
If the tax is on bytes sent, compress your e-mail and pay less tax for exactly the same message. If it would cost more to collect than they'd get, anyway, this would massively inflate the difference.
What could anyone do to monitor e-mail? Scan port 25? So, have your mail server also use port 1025! Or some other "unofficial" port. So long as your friends know what port you use, they can patch their sendmail, qmail or zmailer to use it, and you can trade untaxed e-mails to your heart's content.
Rumors (false ones, at that) (Score:3)
--
This is a HOAX (Score:3)
2 1/2 - 3 months. I would expect slashdot
to do at least _minimal_ screening for this
type of thing.
Next thing you know, we'll be seeing warnings
for the Good Times virus in AskSlashdot.
Anyone who hears any of this "I heard that
blah blah blah computer blah blah government
blah blah virus blah blah cyberwar" crap
should check out these sites before they
pass this stuff on:
Computer Virus Myths home page:
http://kumite.com/myths/
(has info on this email BS too)
Hoax du Jour
http://korova.com/virus/hoax.htm
The Crypt Newsletter
http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~crypt/
These three sources alone are enough to disprove
almost all of the computer related "mass-hysteria"
type of misinformation which pervades all levels
of media from the net, all the way to newsprint
and TV.
Please think before you spew out the latest rumor.
Especially if you are a "news website."
Re:revolution Re:I am getting so fed up w/ the gov (Score:3)
Baloney. Bill Gates does not have an guarunteed income of 2 trillion dollars a year whether his "customers" like it or not. Bill Gates cannot write laws. He cannot throw people in jail.
In some cases businesses do these things, but always with the help of the government. If the government weren't so big, it wouldn't have so many favors to give out to businesses. So it remains true that only the government can pose a real threat to our freedom. Corporations cannot coerce you without government help.
Old joke... (Score:3)
Putting tax on E-mail would be like charging people for speaking...
Why even discuss it? (Score:4)
ObTopic:
This makes no sense at all. While (I think) the post office may be running a slight surplus at the moment, it has not been a substantial source of government revenue in this century. In any event, the cost of delivering first class letters sent by ordinary joes/janes is substantially subsidized by bulk rate mail, so to the extent people send e-mail instead of first class postal mail, the government is actually farther ahead by a few pennies.Suggested substitute topic: In order to make Area 51 even more secret, the government is considering deleting the number 51 from the official list of positive integers. Discuss among yourselves.
Re:Why??? (Score:4)
I wish I could be that naive.
The other reason may be "We want to track all this email". This would be a great way to keep tabs on things. It would also be a way to shut down operations that wish to hide their doings from the government (not necessarily criminals...I can think of many legitimate reasons to hide certain details from the government). If you avoided notifying the Fed of your emailing, the IRS can get you, a la Al Capone.
BTW, is this not a direct assault on the first amendment? Free speech requires "free beer". If the government has the power to tax email, it has the power to tax it heavily--that is, to suppress it.
You can tax commerce, so you can tax commercial communications ventures (telcos, ISPs, cable providers) for their commercial activities. You can tax and regulate the electromagnetic spectrum as a "previously undiscovered resource", and the only way to keep the spectrum from becoming pure noise. Finally, you can tax postal service (with stamps) because the government is actually providing a service.
Taxing email (or other TCP-style traffic) is entirely out of line. It will also be very hard to do; if a protocol is taxed, another protocol will pop up. Programmers can release software faster than Congress can regulate it. Most ISPs are already taxed on a per-dollar, rather than per-megabyte, basis by virtue of being commercial entities.
I can understand why the government wants to tax the Internet. It's for the same reason bank robbers rob banks: it's where the money is. The Internet is full of the more wealthy people and businesses in the US; if you are going to levy a tax in this country, you may as well tax the wealthier people. I for one have no problem with taxing the Net in principle, but I do have a problem with the email idea. Perhaps a saner, more fair, and less invasive tax would be an e-commerce sales tax.
Before people flame me for saying the above to get "other people" taxed, understand that I am a software engineer (to give you an idea of my tax bracket) in the e-commerce business. If my ideas get implemented, I will pay more tax than I do now. I don't overly mind paying taxes, and I know that being taxed in some form or other is a necessity. I do mind when the tax codes invade my freedom and violate my rights, especially when the same tax revenues could be gained in a less invasive way.
Logistics anyone? (Score:4)
Onto my real point. How would they do that? Would ISPs be required to log all of the email messages that people send? This alone would be a huge task to put to ISPs that would cost them money. Second would be the issue of logging such emails from the standpoint of privacy.
How would the taxes be collected? Would it be added on to the bill you pay your ISP, would it be put on your W2? What if your ISP was not your email provider (free email abounds)?
Needless to say, I think that it would cost twice as much to manage the thing as it would gain in revenue.
The other question that comes to mind is what about all of us who run Linux and Sendmail? I run my own sendmail and IMAP server on a dedicated connection. I am about to give a couple of friends account because they are moving. Would I be required to log the number of email that left my box (something I really don't know how or want to do), and then collect the money from them and me (something that I WON'T do).
This is a really bad idea IMHO. If someone would explain the logistics behind such a proposal, at least it could be debatable from an ethical/political standpoint as to whether or not it would be beneficial, but without any such logistics worked out, it's nothing . . .
Re:Rumors (false ones, at that) (Score:5)
Stamps.com and estamp.com were approved for liceenses to create postage stamp on the 9th of August. Cnn reported the news today and I went to look at the sites and the software/service for sale. Briefly if you haven't heard of it, it allows you to print up your own postage for snail mail. To use this system to print your own stamps requires that you download a license from the USPS. There was no mention of any operating systems besides those sold by Microsoft as eligible to run this software. Not Linux, not Mac, not Solaris, not OS/2, nor anyone else. I would have thought some lawyer at the USPS would have raised the alarm about the exclusivity of this deal as it denies equality of access to government services.
The irony of the government licensed monopoly being allowed to do an exclusive deal on an essential service like postage with a ('til now?) purely private monopoly, while the government's lawyers waiting for a verdict in their case against MS was apparently all lost on CNN and the USPS. It made me sick in that old familiar way.
Looks like USPS will save itself some money by using Linux to deliver the mail, but cheerfully helps enforce the MS tax on all small business owners. Nice.
Hoax? (Score:5)
The USPS has neither the resources nor the jurisdiction to do this; it's just another in a long string of chain e-mails that morons forward around without knowing anything about it.
In general, Internet taxes won't work. There are only two real models that could work: charge the ISPs a tax, which they would pass on to subscribers (I imagine AOL and others would fight this tooth and nail), or a national sales tax on purchases made over the Internet. Taxing things such as e-mail or bandwidth would be impractical.
That won't stop legislators from trying, though...