Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions
STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS -- (Senate - January 04, 2007)
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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, today I am reintroducing in this new Congress a bill to advance a cause for which I have been fighting for over 10 years now. The Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act would extend the current Internet tax moratorium, so that the Internet can remain free from burdensome and discriminatory taxes.
Legislation to keep the Internet free from these taxes has passed the Senate 3 times since 1998 with sunsets that required consecutive extensions. A permanent moratorium on Internet taxation passed through both the Commerce and Finance Committees in the 109th Congress yet failed to get action on the Senate floor.
I come to the Floor again, bringing up Internet Taxation, because the moratorium on Internet Taxation is set to expire on November 1st of this year. In only 11 months, if Congress does not act, the moratorium on Internet Taxation that has allowed the Internet and e-commerce to flourish will cease to protect American consumers and American businesses.
I don't want those who use the Internet to end up like our ancestors: they were told the Spanish-American War telephone tax was ``temporary,' and that the tax was just needed to pay for the war. That war ended two centuries ago, and Congress is just now getting around to getting rid of the tax!
The last time I checked, the Internet shows no sign of riding off into the sunset, or becoming obsolete. You can bet that once discriminatory taxes are slapped on Internet users, those discriminatory taxes won't be going away any time soon either.
If you want to figure out how much discriminatory taxes could be, just look at your phone bill. Taxes and government fees already add as much as 20 percent in surcharges to consumer's telephone bills.
If you take a gallon of milk to the checkout counter and pay tax on the purchase, the clerk can't turn around and charge you another tax if you're going to use the milk in your cereal and another tax if you're going to put milk in your coffee. But that's what will happen to the Internet if the ban is not made permanent. You'd still pay all the telephone taxes and all the franchise fees on cable, but on top of those you'd pay even more taxes for the same service when you sign on to the Internet!
Discriminatory and double taxation of the Internet has been banned for 8 years now. In all that time no one has ever come forward with evidence to show that the failure to impose discriminatory taxes has hurt them. No one has demonstrated why taxes that cannot be imposed in the offline world should be imposed on identical online transactions.
Western Civilization may not end if the Permanent Internet Freedom Act is not passed, but you have to ask how many times Congress has to revisit, re-litigate and re-approve a law that has been this effective. It is time to make the Internet Tax moratorium permanent.
I want to thank my colleagues, Mr. MCCAIN from Arizona and Mr. SUNUNU from New Hampshire for introducing this legislation with me today. They both fought tirelessly alongside me and our former colleague, Mr. Allen from Virginia, to get the moratorium extended in 2004. I am pleased that they are now replacing Mr. Allen as my bi-partisan partners on this important piece of legislation. It is my hope that the three of us, working with the rest of our colleagues, can get this all-important piece of legislation passed early this year so we do not have to worry about it as the November 1st deadline fast approaches.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the bill was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
S. 156
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