The 1998 Internet Tax Freedom Act

Until, December 17, 2010, the House and Senate who were referred to as lame ducks passed the 2010 Tax Act (Dye) and President Barack Obama signed the act into law with the extension of the Bush 2003 tax act.

The Digital Goods and Services Tax Fairness Act would end the imposition of multiple and duplicative taxes from various jurisdictions on a single digital download. The legislation also prohibits the imposition of taxes on digital goods at a higher rate than the actual physical

SOPA, PIPA, and CISPA: though different, these bills were all presented with a similar goal in mind. These bills were intended to stop the digital copyright infringement of American intellectual properties, mainly in foreign countries, but the overly vague wording in the bills made it hard to decipher their real intentions (Yu). For a multitude of reasons, these bills were staunchly protested not only by American citizens, but they also received protest from numerous international groups (York). Though some may argue that SOPA, PIPA, or CISPA may have had some value, they did not have the intended result of ending digital theft, but rather invigorated a retaliating movement. The main

Retail sales taxes are one of the best ways to collect tax revenue. If the tax rates are high in one state, then a consumer can shop online to avoid excessive sales taxes in another state. This is why many states are pushing Congress to adopt legislation to make all online retailers pay sales-tax regardless of their state of operation. Sales taxes through internet transactions have become a hot topic in the political arena, and there are plenty of politicians who are in agreement of collecting taxes from the internet including Alabama. Economically there are some states that are losing a great deal of tax revenue because certain businesses that are out-of-state are not required to collect sales-tax. According to William T. Lundeen and Tracy D. Williams (2002), “Congress cannot alter the protections provided by the Due Process Clause” (p. 18). Therefore, the Supreme Court ruled on this issue in 1992, saying that out-of-state tax collectors cannot force retailers to pay taxes.

The Electronic Communication Privacy Act is protection against the illegal interception of citizens’ digital communication methods. The act establishes and restricts access to electronic means of communicating and prohibits the authorization of the government and employers to do so without given consent. Although the act establishes protection to citizens against illegal interception people should take into account for what and from whom they send out their information.

5. If you create an online store for your online business, what does your website need to include in order to comply with the Electronic Funds Transfer Act?

“This legislation grew out of the fact that by 1998 roughly ten million American children had access to the Internet, and at the same time, studies indicated that children were unable to understand the potential effect of revealing their personal information online and parent failed to monitor their children’s use of the Internet.” (Koby)

Since the recent passage of the Internet Tax Freedom Act, on October 21, 1998, making the Internet tax free, there has been an intense debate on whether to tax or not to tax Internet purchases. The conservative side, also known as the Republicans, is opposed to Internet taxation saying that it is too costly to collect taxes on Internet purchases. They also believe that since Internet retailers do not have a physical presence in every state, why should the state receive sales tax on a nonexistent store in that state? This would be taxation without representation (par. 18 Lukas). On the other hand, the liberals, also known as democrats, believe that taxation of the Internet should be lawful because

With the emergence of other means of electronic communication like the internet, there was a growing tendency of the government agencies to sneak into the information channels of citizens without their permission. This was due to the fact that the 1968 Act did not cover the electronic mails that were en route to their final destination. The courts till 2005 declared that this type of communication was not covered by the 1986 Act. It was until then that the US Court of Appeal reversed the ruling that has been barring the e-mails from being covered under the privacy provision.

Public participation, a process involving citizen or stakeholder engagement in decision-making, has gained increasing emphasis in recent years. Interestingly, the emergence of the concepts of “e-governance”, “e-government” and “e-democracy” reflects the increasing connection of online tools such as the Internet with the concept of public participation (Freeman, 2013). Does governmental regulation of the Internet necessarily not promote public participation then? I think not; to my mind, there are two different kinds of regulation – “positive” and “negative” regulation, implemented with the purpose of promoting and restricting participation respectively. Whether these regulations indeed do promote or restrict effective public participation

Although the PROTECT IP Act may put somewhat of a stop to online piracy, it is quite costly. The act was estimated the cost forty-six million dollars over the 2012-2016 period. This is due to the fact that the act would force new requirements on companies such as Internet service providers, credit card companies, online advertisers, and search engines. The cost of the act created an uncertainty along the Congressional Budget Office. The PROTECT IP Act states that an “information location tool shall take technically feasible and reasonable measures, as expeditiously as possible, to remove or disable access to the Internet site associated with the domain name set forth in the order”.(“Balancing Digital Theft Prevention and Freedom of Expression.”) In addition, it must delete all hyperlinks to the offending “Internet site”. In other terms, if a website is found to be providing pirated media, the internet provider such as Verizon, or Optimum, would be required to blacklist the website. Later, the copyright holders would have the right to sue the website. There are multiple different ways that people could still pirate media while the PROTECT IP was enacted. These include using a VPN service, using web proxies, and changing your DNS server. There is no proof that blocking access to websites will have a permanent and long effect on the piracy. The owner of the rogue websites are able to create a new website just like the old by simply registering the blocked website

Sales tax is one of the most conversed topics and in the national spotlight frequently. States have been struggling to gain a hold on internet sales and the related tax liabilities. Sales tax policy is an intriguing subject and the current internet revolution is pushing discussion of sales taxes to the forefront. This has caused a high level of distress held by business leaders, bureaucrats, and politicians in the field of sales tax. The current goal and focus on sales tax policy is that a more rational sales tax compliance environment can be developed.

These days the internet has become an essential part to living for almost everyone but one of the controversial topics that people bring up is that whether or not the government should regulate information on the internet. Both sides have valid points which form a reasonable argument. Some people would say that they need to because of the dangers lurking around in the cyber world but the reasons for why the government shouldn’t regulate the Internet outnumber the reasons for why they should. The federal government should not regulate or censor information on the internet because doing so violates the first amendment and citizen’s right to privacy, degrades the educational value of the web, prevents the promotion and facilitation of

Following its removal from the Finance Bill, what does this mean for Making Tax Digital?

How many web searches does a person do in a day two, five, or more how about YouTube videos more or less the same as the web searches. Every time a person makes a purchase or looks something up in website like Amazon people don’t notice their purchases or searches are record and stored in database with ever things else they bought or looked at in their account in Amazon to make a tailored preference to that person’s like with using the stored records in the account. It’s sound great however, what happens when that stored data was sold to another website that person didn’t have account with. Most people wouldn’t care but what they don’t know is that also their personal information is on there to like email and street address. It not helping