Another bill to keep the Internet free of taxes or other charges has been introduced by Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI).
Upton’s bill, complementing one sponsored by Senator Robert Smith (R-NH), would prohibit federal, state, county and local governments, from imposing access fees on Internet service providers. The measure has 68 co-sponsors.
Smith’s bill, introduced in late January, would abolish the Internet Tax Freedom Act’s three year moratorium on new Internet taxes with a permanent ban retroactive to last Sept. 30 when the moratorium went into effect.
Upton introduced the bill shortly after he and 20 other members of the House and Senate, including Rep. Christopher Cox (R-CA) and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, asked the Federal Communications Commission to clarify its stand on Internet access charges. Without it, the letter stated, “there will always be a reason for Internet users to suspect that FCC regulation could be right around the corner.”
In another Internet tax action, the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the National Association of Counties filed a lawsuit challenging the makeup of a Congressionally appointed panel to study the Internet tax problem as required by the Internet Tax Freedom Act.
They claimed in a suit filed in U.S. District Court, Washington, DC, that the panel has the ability to thwart support of any recommendation for tax parity between Internet, retail and mail order sales, because it’s dominated by business interests.
Without the ability to enforce taxes on Internet sales “Internet businesses effectively avoid these taxes and state and local governments are deprived of this vital source of tax income,” they said in court papers.
There was no immediate comment from involved Congressional panel members about the suit.
