Internet Tax Law

Essential and already a commodity, these are the views of today's generation when dealing with the internet. Today, the internet is already considered as a companion in the business world. Since businesses are involved, we cannot remove from it the fluid that makes it work which is money. In view of the fact that money is concerned, the U.S government began to take into consideration the revenue that can be generated through the internet.

In the context of the United States, internet taxation began on 1996. Being a potential source of income for the government, many states and municipalities started to inscribe a taxation law that will govern the industry contained in the internet. Direct taxation was implemented in several parts of the United States, this approach laid tax even to internet access. In order to protect the educational, commercial and informational content of the internet, the Internet Tax Freedom Act of 1998 was made. Contrary to direct taxation, this law bars the taxation of internet access which allows free utilization of the internet but this law doesn't affect transactions made online.

Since taxing internet access of the end-user is not feasible, some states usually collect taxes from the internet service providers (ISP's). Hence, the ISP's usually charge the tax to the consumers but these taxes fall on the category of sales tax and telecommunications tax thus avoiding them to violate the Internet Tax Freedom Act. Aside from internet access tax which is barred, there are several internet taxes under the law. Some of these taxes are telecommunications tax, franchise tax, bit tax, bandwidth tax and e-mail tax. Telecommunications and franchise taxes usually apply on utilities, cable operators and ISP's. Franchise taxes apply to different states, this tax is usually charged to utilities and cable operators but municipalities are also trying to find ways of charging the same tax to utilities and cable operators within the municipal area, but these taxes are also levied to the customers, in response to this multiple taxation, the Internet Tax Freedom Act also banned the problem on this. Under the umbrella of the Internet Tax Freedom Act, bit tax, bandwidth tax and e-mail tax are also banned. The e-mail tax was proposed by the United Nations on a globalization development program; this will help generate income for technological needs of poor countries so that they will not be left behind but under the Internet Tax Freedom Act, this form of tax imposition by the U.S. government or any of its political division is banned.