Opinion

Internet tax a misguided prospect

Since the Internet’s inception, buzz has surrounded the prospect of a sales tax, but until the last few years, technology available made enforcement difficult if not impractical.

Internet sales tax is likely an idea that will be implemented no matter how great the opposition. I don’t mind the idea, because I deal with sales tax everywhere else and plus I don’t buy much online. But I am generally opposed to new taxes because the ones levied against us are being misappropriated.

By the same token, if this new tax were dedicated to only supporting new data infrastructure such as fiber roll-out, newer 4G networks for cellular companies and other technological expenses, it would be much more palatable.

State sales tax is spent exclusively within the state, so why should an Internet sales tax be spent on anything but the Internet?

Before anything can be implemented, the powers that be need to figure out how to constrain these taxes only to U.S. citizens and residents. Although geolocation by IP address has improved, many Americans travel overseas and purchase items online while abroad. Geolocation also cannot account for proxy servers, international re-routing or intentional spoofing of an IP address. Until these ways to fool the system are resolved, there’s no feasible way of implementing this sort of taxation fairly without accidentally charging some poor person in Western Europe or Asia.

In short, it’s a monstrously difficult task and isn’t feasible, which unfortunately means that some senator or representative will dream up the ‘perfect solution’ in his or her pea-brain and get it passed as law.

Now is not the time for a new tax, especially one so complicated in execution. If we need more money, then liberate revenue from useless programs and services already in existence. There’s plenty of money here, it just needs to be used intelligently.

Internet taxation will be impossible until it is treated like its own entity in an international government. Current consumers purchasing online pay sales tax if their purchase is a physical item (or taxable service) bought from a company in their state of residence – like any other sales tax. That’s easy enough, because it asks for your shipping address. But if you buy something that can’t be taxed anyway, there is no tax. If the Internet sales tax is in effect, you might have to pay tax on a normally non-taxable purchase.

The whole thing is overly complicated in design and function, which brings far more complexity and discontent to an already overburdened codebase. It should be deprecated and thrown out like all inefficient code. I say there should be no tax until Internet users have a say in the process and can be assured of the proceeds’ proper use. As the founding fathers once yelled so defiantly, ‘no taxation without representation!’

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