more on EU to tax e-mail, text messages? - overblown

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Patrick Sinz <patrick_sinz () yahoo com>
Date: May 28, 2006 7:45:05 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] more on EU to tax e-mail, text messages? - overblown

Yes it is currently overblown, lets hope it stays so.

Part of the issue is that the EC is pressuring the member states into
spending less in the public sector, this is making it harder to convince
them to put more money into the EC, since it is alway inconfortable to
tell people to do as you say not as you do.
Of course accepting the continuation of the Tatcher's blackmail wich
gives a big rebate to the UK, and helping the new member states does
cost money.

The other more severe issue is that the EU never succeded in getting its
act together on the fiscal front.
Each member state can impose more or less the taxes they want, execpt
cross border taxes.
In theory it would reflect the creativity of each state in terms of
operating efficiently, in practice it enables small states to do fiscal
dumping for international companies.

This basically enables, for instance Microsoft to pay almost no taxes in
France, and very little taxes in Ireland where it is supposed to
operate.
The Irish government does not need to be efficient since they are
getting a "discounted" revenue tax based on the revenues comming from
400 Millions EU Citizen, but they have to spend them only on approx 5 M
Irish Citizens.

So in theory all these "special tax schemes" are ridiculous, in practice
they are needed because corporations are not taxed in a sane way.
Basically very small corporations do not pay anything because it usually
makes sense to convert any revenue into costs spent by the "management
team" (owner).
And very large companies do not pay anything exept fiscal advisers and
lobbyist.
And the medium sized companies are carrying the can.

Moreover a Email "tax" would be a nifty way to force people to use a
"well controled ISP".
The risk is to see in a couple of year a law "for the EU and against
SPAM, and 'all the bad things lurking under our beds'" stating that only
certified Mail and Instant messaging service providers are allowed to
operate (and pay taxes).
Of course some underground activists will be running nice funky "smtp
over HTTP gateways" to exchange crypted mails, But they will not be able
to exchange emails with "normal citizens", and therefore be largelly
irrelevant.

But then "Le Pire n'est Jamais Certain"
Le dimanche 28 mai 2006 à 07:04 -0400, David Farber a écrit :
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Seth Finkelstein <sethf () sethf com>
> Date: May 27, 2006 8:35:10 PM EDT
> To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
> Cc: ip () v2 listbox com, lauren () vortex com,
> Bob2-19-0501 () bobf frankston com
> Subject: Re: [IP] EU to tax e-mail, text messages? - overblown
>
>         As far as I can tell, this story is being blown way, way,
> out of proportion. The EU is nowhere near taxing e-mail or text
> messages. *One* member *put forth* the idea in a discussion, but
> it's unclear if anything ever happened after that. I managed to
> trace back what might be the source:
>
> http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/expert/infopress_page/
> 002-7845-128-05-19-901-20060503IPR07844-08-05-2006-2006-false/
> default_en.htm
>
> "Participants were not short of imagination for new forms of funding:
> taxes on flights, company profits or even on short text messages sent
> by mobile phones. The supporter of this idea, EP own resources
> rapporteur Alain Lamassoure (EPP-ED, FR), also believed that the new
> system would have to be clearly linked with benefits drawn from the
> European Union. Thanks to the internal market "exchanges between
> countries have ballooned, so everyone would understand that the money
> to finance the EU should come from the benefits engendered by the EU,"
> he explained."
>
>         Then there was an interview with a newspaper, EU Observer,
> which is now locked in pay-archives, though there's some excerpts  
> here:
> http://www.textually.org/textually/archives/2006/05/012321.htm
>
>         Alain Lamassoure has a website here:
>
> http://www.alainlamassoure.com/
>
>         There's a forum where he's responding, but it's in French,
> and I don't feel comfortable attempting to translate his replies.
>
>         But there's a vast difference between some woolgathering,
> and any sort of formal proposal, much less anything being enacted.



-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as lists-ip () insecure org
To manage your subscription, go to
 http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/