Net.Tax

Tech writer Declan McCullagh (who thanks to the wonders of technology is sitting here plugging away at his own laptop) has a piece up at c|net's News.com on a proposed expansion of a Spanish-American War–era excise tax to cover all data connections. An alternative proposal would tax only Voice Over IP (VoIP) conversations to compensate for the shift away from the tax's previous cash cow, traditonal land-line based phone traffic. Sixteen members of Congress blasted the proposal in a letter to the Joint Committee.