Tax That Phone!

Funny, just not ha-ha funny. Two California towns make a stab at taxing Net phone lines to the tune of $1.40 per subscriber.

This probably won't work, but gives you an idea of the battles ahead.

Comments

[Ironchef]

Heaven forbid if the citys' residents have any say in this.

[Highway]

More indication that government is in it for itself: That cities are hiring consultants to identify 'threats' to their tax base. Not threats to the citizenry, mind you.

[metalgrid]

I'm still surprised that they aren't taxing e-mail..

[CodeMonkeySteve]

"For every action, there is an equal and opposite government program."

[Voiper]

I just gave up an ordinary phone line for an IP phone. I stuck to my current area code but I could have gotten any area code I wanted or even a different country code. Figuring out who lives where can be a problem with an IP (internet protocol) phone.

Currently, most VOIP (voice over IP) providers sell connectivity to the public telephone system. However, as VOIP popularity grows, public telephone system connectivity will become less important as more more people become directly reachable via IP. At some point, even VOIP providers become unnecessary since VOIP is fundamentally a P2P thing. At that point there is no localized entity to tax, just us internet folks.