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An Activist’s Life, by Thomas Leavitt » Blog Archive » My comments re: IRS idea to impose 3% excise tax on VOIP

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July 7th, 2004
Geek stuff

My comments re: IRS idea to impose 3% excise tax on VOIP

Agency : INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE
Title : Excise Taxes; Communications Services
Subject Category : Excise taxes: Communication services; information request
Docket ID : REG-137076-02
CFR Citation : 26 CFR 49
Published : July 02, 2004
Comments Due : September 30, 2004
Phase : PROPOSED RULES

——————————————————————————–
Your comment has been sent. To verify that this agency has received your comment, please contact the agency directly. If you wish to retain a copy of your comment, print out a copy of this document for your files.

Please note your REGULATIONS.GOV number.
Regulations.gov #: EREG - 1 Submitted Jul 07, 2004

Author : Mr. Thomas Leavitt
thomas@thomasleavitt.org
Organization : Godmoma’s Forge, LLC
Mailing Address : P.O. Box 7095
Santa Cruz, CA 95061
US
Attached Files :

Comment : Attempting to impose a tax on VOIP communications will

1. provide a strong disincentive to utilize any form of voice over internet communications covered by such a tax
2. cause grave harm to the maintenance of a single standard for voice based addressing (aka phone numbers)
3. damage the fundamental operating paradigm of the internet by creating an artificial distinction between one form of data (VOIP packets) vs. another (data, video, voice based “chat” such as Yahoo Messenger, etc.)

The result of any such attempt to impose a tax will be a migration to equivalent technologies not covered by such a tax, or to services not operating within the jurisdiction of the United States - thus harming the public by slowing the migration to packet based voice communcations technologies, imposing artificial costs by facilitating the creation of incompatible standards for identifying and contacting individuals via voice/video, and harming American competitiveness by forcing adoption of non-native hosted and operated services.

Please reconsider this idea, and instead begin planning alternative mechanisms for funding the programs currently subsidized by this tax.

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