more on IRS eyes Net phone taxes

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: David Mercer <radix42 () cox net>
Date: July 7, 2004 8:21:06 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] IRS eyes Net phone taxes

At 08:57 AM 7/7/2004, you wrote:
> ...... Forwarded Message .......
> From: Kurt Albershardt <kurt () nv net>
> To: dave () farber net
> Date: Wed, 07 Jul 2004 08:09:05 -0700
> Subj: IRS eyes Net phone taxes

> The IRS and Treasury Department notice, called an advance notice of
> proposed rulemaking, asks for comments from the public no later than 
> Sept.
> 30. Bradshaw, the IRS spokeswoman, said "we're requesting the comments 
> so
> we know what issues to look at."

Hi Dave, leaving aside for a moment how I feel about taxing VOIP calls, 
the
last paragraph of this piece disturbs me greatly.  I thought taxes 
needed
to be decided by our representatives, you know, as in "No taxation 
without
representation?"

This is yet another clear example of how deeply the Congress has 
abrogated
their legislative function to the Executive Branch.  It's much less 
risky to
get reelected if you left the details to the 'regulation' implementing 
the
'law' you passed.  And we all know that the Devil is in the Details, no?

Ye gods, half the things we worry about on IP and Politech should be 
decided
by Congress, not some quickie 'rulemaking process'.  We're all bound by 
those
regulations just as tightly as if they were actual statutes, so why the 
hell
does no one have to vote on them?  They are where the economic winners 
and
losers under almost every new statute is actually determined, Congress 
seeming
to merely decide the budget and rough areas that monies are to be spent.

Let's see, war-making decisions delegated largely to the Executive, 
check...
legislative function likewise relegated to an un-accountable 
bureaucracy, check...
hmmm, from reading history that sounds a damn lot like a classic 
imperial
form of govt.  We aren't there in an external sense, else we'd have been
levying a nice tax on our 'allies' for their defense the last 40 or so 
years
in Asia and Europe.  But our internal form of govt. is very clearly no 
longer
a Republic, and our elections serve merely to rubberstamp the next 
selected
batch of oligarchs.

Both parties want an ever larger govt. to put it's noses into more and 
more
things.  Remember, when everything is political, everything is subject 
to
politics: just ask anyone who lived behind the Iron Curtain how that is.

And while we have FDR and LBJ to thank for most of the damaging 
structural
changes that have led to this, GOP presidents haven't been noted for 
dismantling
the sources of their new power either (certainly not THIS one!)  
Unfortunately
I don't see any candidate or party anywhere on the landscape who'd have 
it
otherwise, except perhaps some dogmatic, extreme fringe parties who are 
wholly
unelectable.

Yes, all that triggered by that one, short paragraph.  The 'rulemaking 
process'
is IMHO a symptom of how deeply we have sold out our own revolution.

Cheers,

David Mercer
Tucson, AZ



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