Tuesday May 8 8:15 PM ET
Bush Wants Permanent Ban on Web Access Taxes

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush (news - web sites) on Tuesday called for a permanent ban on Internet access taxes in a speech that echoed his campaign stand against imposing new taxes on the billions of dollars in e-commerce.

``We need to ban Internet access taxes,'' Bush said in a speech to the Electronic Industries Alliance, a trade group representing high technology companies. ``We need to understand how powerful the Internet can be to commerce and growth.''

In 1998, Congress enacted three-year bans, set to expire on Oct. 21, on taxing the charges people pay for Internet service and on imposing discriminatory taxes that treat Internet sales differently from other forms of remote commerce like catalog sales.

The issue pits the high tech industry against states and local authorities who fear the loss of sales tax revenues that they use to pay for everything from schools to ambulances.

Currently, Internet retailers are generally treated like catalog retailers, collecting sales tax only if they have a physical presence, like a store or a warehouse, in the purchaser's jurisdiction.

During the 2000 presidential campaign Bush said he favored making the ban on Internet access taxes permanent and extending the ban on discriminatory Internet taxes by up to five years.

``The president favors extension of the moratorium on Internet taxation and he favors a permanent ban on all Internet access taxes,'' White House spokesman Ari Fleischer (news - web sites) told reporters on Tuesday.

Fleischer said Bush would work with Congress on deciding how long to extend the moratorium, saying officials needed to study how the Internet would affect government revenues.

-- Anonymous, May 09, 2001

Answers

So how come I have taxes charged on my internet accesss??????

And I notice a user charge as well. I have no idea what that is!

-- Anonymous, May 09, 2001

Golly, Gee! Don't ya'all think that they should consult with Al? I mean, com'on....he invented the internet!

-- Anonymous, May 10, 2001