atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General Telecom News VoIP to be Taxed in LA

Story Here: LA to Tax VoIP

And so it begins...

I never thought I would be happy to see new taxes but this one is long in coming. When (not if) it catches on all over it should level the playing field between the real phone companies and the pretenders. Then lets see the smirk on Vonage and the cable company's faces change when the have to charge competitively.

-Hal

They will only be able to assess a flat tax on the stand-alone VOIP account, which by itself will be a good thing. It's about time for a level playing field for service providers.

The governments have no way to assess a usage-based tax, in fact even the feds have not figured that out yet. They also don't have a way to tax voice traffic over an integrated circuit as a stand-alone component. It would have to be on the honor system at best. If they do figure this out and implement it, things will change dramatically on several fronts. India will certainly have a major increase in unemployment for starters.

Another one of the reasons why Net Neutrality is such a hot topic. If it passes then they would be able to tariff traffic (such as VoIP) regardless of origination. My laptop calling my Desktop could be subject to tariff/taxes.

If you remove all the taxes on a land line Vonage isn't all that great a deal. People don't look at it that way though, just the bottom line. I agree the field needs to be leveled.

I believe you're missing the point here! This is not about leveling a playing field at all but about taxes. This is about lawmakers putting forth an idea of lowering taxes, which everyone will see and notice and vote for, while increasing taxes on other items in the fine print! Laws similar to this one have been found to be unconstitutional but this one is "bullet-proof". Even if its struck down the municipality will continue to collect the revenue! The consumer will pay!

You are right but at least they chose something that is ripe for the picking, even if it is underhanded.

They know the future of communication is IP communications.

Go get 'em!

-Hal

Yeah, right! Lower this tax and raise that tax. And in 2-3 years we'll slip back in and raise 'this' tax while everyone is still talking about how it 'was about time' they levied 'that' tax. Fair Tax and no other federal tax, EVER. John C. (Not Garand)

Jwooten is correct. The imposed tax (previously paid only by users of traditional telco service) was deemed illegal, and steps were being taken to refund that money to those taxpayers.

This collection could only continue if taxpayer's gave consent, thus making it legal. That's why this thing had to be drafted as a bill and voted on. And how do politicans get taxpayer's to approve (what has been) an illegal tax? Drop the collected rate by 1% and advertise it as a tax cut! Top it off by throwing in gloomy alarmist talk about an underfunded LAPD no longer able to keep the increasing Los Angeles mayhem in check.

The fact that this bill will collect from VoIP providers as well is simply salt on the wound. Yeah, yeah...horray, the VoIP guy gets it in the groin. The bigger picture is that both VoIP and traditional telco users have again become victims of political spin.

This is a dead issue. They are already charging taxes on your Internet service at home. Taxed twice for the same internet connection. why would they care what you are using it for unless what you are doing is Illegal?