🚀 go-pugleaf

Following is from the AP Wire. It's a Florida story but Illinois, NY and Ohio are 
considering a similar tax...
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|Businesses blast proposal to tax the Net
|
|Copyright � 1996 The Associated Press 
|
|TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (Apr 8, 1996 10:12 p.m. EDT) -- Business owners sent thousands of 
|e-mail messages and faxes to the state Capitol on Monday, protesting a plan to tax 
|businesses that provide access to the Internet.
|
|The tax would be imposed on business connections to the Internet and online services, 
|not personal or recreational users.
|
|"The Internet is a vital link for my office as well as for my clients. This valuable 
|source of information should not be taxed," said an e-mail message from Lewis F. 
||Collins Jr. of the Dickinson & Gibbons law firm in Sarasota. Faxes and e-mail 
|messages from 4,500 businesses and business groups were taped to the courtyard of the 
|Capitol.
|
|A House Finance and Tax Committee workshop expected to address the issue ran out of 
|time and put off debate until next Monday.
|
|The tax is a new interpretation of an old law: if the business is classified as a 
|taxable telecommunications service, Internet service providers must pay the 
|government 2.5 percent of gross receipts. The tax would be 7 percent on subscription 
|fees or usage charges for connecting to computer networks, including commercial 
|services like CompuServe and America Online.
|
|Business owners say the new tax is unfair because the affected companies already pay 
|taxes on telephone service. Residential and commercial phone-service users already 
|are subject to a 2.5 percent state utilities tax and commercial customers pay 
|dditional sales taxes. "It would be a double tax," said Jim Marchant, owner of 
|Mercury Communications in Gainesville.
|
|George Johnson of the Florida Chamber of Commerce said several other states, 
|including Ohio, Illinois and New York, are considering a similar tax but none have 
|enacted it.
|
|Marchant set off the debate last year when he asked his chamber of commerce how he 
|should tax his customers, and the chamber asked the state Department of Revenue.
|
|After reviewing the laws, the state decided commercial computer connections met the 
|definition of a taxable telecommunications service that had existed on the books for 
|decades.
|
|Protests over the ruling prompted the department to delay collecting the tax until 
|July 1.