Net Papa: Global Internet Taxes Inevitable

The other shoe just stepped on a banana peel...

Cheers,
Bob Hettinga

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Date: Tue, 9 Sep 1997 19:57:48 +0200 (MET DST)
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Subject: Net Papa: Global Internet Taxes Inevitable
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   (09/09/97; 12:00 p.m. EDT)
   By Douglas Hayward, TechWire

   GENEVA -- Internet taxes are inevitable, according to the man dubbed
   the "Father of the Net." The only way to avoid global chaos is to
   create an international agreement on how to do it, added Vint Cerf at
   a meeting of the Internet Society here. Cerf co-developed the
   TCP/IP[LINK] protocol on which all Web and Net transaction depend.

   ...Taxation of the Internet, also called "bit taxes," must be well
   planned, Cerf said. "And it must also be thought through on a global
   scale -- not parochially," he said. In the United States. alone, there
   are 30,000 taxing authorities that might be interested in taxing
   transactions on the Internet, said Cerf, adding that right now, there
   is no way to determine which of those authorities should have
   jurisdiction over a particular transaction.

   ..."If something is becoming an infrastructure that is important for
   people's daily lives, then governments will have the right to be
   concerned about the public's safety and well-being," Cerf said. "When
   you build roads, you make rules about how people are to behave on
   these roads, in order to protect people." TW

http://192.215.107.71/wire/news/1997/09/0909tax.html

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-----------------
Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com), Philodox
e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/

>   GENEVA -- Internet taxes are inevitable, according to the man dubbed
>   the "Father of the Net."

Funny thing to claim, given that the European Commission of all has
already rejected Internet taxes half a year ago.

"To allow electronic commerce to develop, it is vital for tax systems
to provide legal certainty (so that tax obligations are clear,
transparent and predictable), and tax neutrality (so there is no extra
burden on these new activities as compared to more traditional
commerce). Electronic trade in goods and services clearly falls within
the scope of VAT, in the same way as more traditional forms of trade
do. There is therefore no need to intoduce new, alternative taxes,
such as a bit tax within the EU."
  -- http://europa.eu.int/en/comm/dgiii/press/970416ae.htm

>   ..."If something is becoming an infrastructure that is important for
>   people's daily lives, then governments will have the right to be
>   concerned about the public's safety and well-being," Cerf said. "When
>   you build roads, you make rules about how people are to behave on
>   these roads, in order to protect people." TW

Sure. Why are there no airbags in those datagrams, yet?

On Wed, 10 Sep 1997, Ulf =?iso-8859-1?Q?M=F6ller?= wrote:

> >   GENEVA -- Internet taxes are inevitable, according to the man dubbed
> >   the "Father of the Net."
> 
> Funny thing to claim, given that the European Commission of all has
> already rejected Internet taxes half a year ago.

Bit taxes are inevitable. The European Commission has rejected new taxes
for now since doing so at the time generated a higher PR benefit than
could have been purchased from the tax revenue. That will change. The EU,
just as the USG, will change the tune before long. Understand that I am 
not saying that they will change their mind. They mind to establish a bit 
tax is already made up. Just as they had made up their mind years ago to 
ban any and all use of non-GAK crypto by private citizens. [It is against the
very nature of government to leave a revenue source untapped forever].

 
> Sure. Why are there no airbags in those datagrams, yet?

There will be airbags in datagrams. Or the equivalent of airbags. Thanks
to IP v6, authenticated datagrams can trivially be mandated. Naturally, 
authentication of datagrams will be mandated once the government is 
increasingly faced with the "negative" side effects of the Internet. 

-- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred

> 
>    (09/09/97; 12:00 p.m. EDT)
>    By Douglas Hayward, TechWire
> 
>    GENEVA -- Internet taxes are inevitable, according to the man dubbed
>    the "Father of the Net." The only way to avoid global chaos is to
>    create an international agreement on how to do it, added Vint Cerf at
>    a meeting of the Internet Society here. Cerf co-developed the
>    TCP/IP[LINK] protocol on which all Web and Net transaction depend.

Jeez.  I'm glad I sold all my Cerf shares at www.roguemarket.com

> 
>    ...Taxation of the Internet, also called "bit taxes," must be well
>    planned, Cerf said. "And it must also be thought through on a global
>    scale -- not parochially," he said. In the United States. alone, there
>    are 30,000 taxing authorities that might be interested in taxing
>    transactions on the Internet, said Cerf, adding that right now, there
>    is no way to determine which of those authorities should have
>    jurisdiction over a particular transaction.

Its amazing that Cerf doesn't even understand the implications of the
network that he designed.  Or maybe he does understand and just
doesn't like the fact that big bro is getting cut out of his future 
utopia.

> 
>    ..."If something is becoming an infrastructure that is important for
>    people's daily lives, then governments will have the right to be
>    concerned about the public's safety and well-being," Cerf said.

Yes and they've done such a good job protecting the public's safety
and well-being.  I don't remember the constitution spelling out 
anything about "governments rights".  Just the feds and states
limited powers.

If paranoia was on the agenda, someone would be shouting 
New World Order at this point.

;-)


> 
Jim Burnes
Engineer, Western Security, SSDS Inc
jim.burnes@ssds.com
----
When the world is running down
Make the best of what's still around
                   - Sting