[Chapter-delegates] [Internet Policy] Taxing Internet services

[Carlos Raúl Gutiérrez G.]

Levin makes a good point to channel this discussion in an orderly way. 
We should be clear about the difference

1. Retail Sales- or VA-Taxes (on “pubic services”), which are 
charged separately on the bill to the final customer

vs.

2. (regulatory) fees on ISPs (including Universal access fees), which 
are “built-in” the retail rate to the final customer

We can start from there

Carlos Raúl Gutiérrez
+506 8837 7176
Skype: carlos.raulg
Current UTC offset: -6.00 (Costa Rica)
On 14 Nov 2016, at 7:43, Alan Levin wrote:

> Hi,
>
> In South Africa one has to buy a TV license in order to buy a TV set 
> (incl a large monitor nowadays too)…  it's less than EU25 although 
> as far as I know this goes towards paying for content…  keeping in 
> mind that one can also legally download content in SA (as long as one 
> does not distribute or sell such content, i.e. it is used for 
> educational and non-commercial purposes) then one can play the content 
> on a 'TV' which is licensed…
>
> There is a special 'tax' for ISPs who are paying a telecommunications 
> 'license fee' of between 0.15% and 0.35% of total revenue (depending 
> on the tier of total revenue derived from licensed activities they 
> earn), these are being increased and they are currently threatening to 
> go over 1%…
>
> hth
>
> Alan
> ISOC-ZA
>
> On 14 Nov 2016, at 3:02 PM, Eileen Gallagher 
> <eileen.gallagher at inex.ie> wrote:
>
>>
>> In Ireland we also have the TV Licence Fee of €160 per annum which 
>> is essentially a broadcasting tax for every house that has a TV.
>> Our Communications Minister in 2013 announced that they would extend 
>> this charge to a public service broadcasting charge which would be 
>> payable by every house in the country that had a device capable of 
>> receiving TV Content  (extending from not just TVs to smartphones, 
>> computers, games devices). The new minister for Communications 
>> announced earlier this year that he was scrapping this plan. Money 
>> from this charge goes to our national broadcaster, RTÉ to develop 
>> public service content. Unlike the BBC, Ireland's national TV 
>> organisation does have advertisements on TV and Radio.
>> We haven't had an internet tax here but ISP services attract 23% 
>> Value Added Tax ( VAT - sales tax)
>>
>> Not sure if it's previously been mentioned on this thread but Viktor 
>> Orbán government in Hungary had over 100,000 on the streets 
>> protesting an internet tax in that country in 2014. Neelie Kroes, 
>> then of the EU Parliament said it was a 'terrible idea'. This is her 
>> spokesperson at that time covering off a lot of thoughts on it - 
>> http://www.euractiv.com/section/digital/video/commission-hungary-s-internet-tax-is-a-terrible-idea/
>>
>> Eileen
>>
>>
>> On 13/11/2016 12:46, vinton cerf wrote:
>>> On Sat, Nov 12, 2016 at 9:24 PM, Cynthia Khoo <cyn.khoo at gmail.com> 
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> First, a couple points of clarification, to ensure everyone is on 
>>> the same page--Mark mentioned above, but to reiterate:
>>>
>>> 1) Neither new tax that the Canadian government is considering is a 
>>> general sales tax like HST, GST, etc., which already applies to 
>>> other domestic goods and services. The first "tax" ("ISP tax") would 
>>> be a special levy on ISPs for the purpose of contributing to the 
>>> Canadian content system, like broadcasting distributors currently 
>>> have to; and the second "tax" ("Netflix tax") would be a mandated 
>>> fee that online content providers would have to contribute to that 
>>> same Canadian content system.
>>>
>>> --------
>>> This reminds me of the television tax in the UK that pays for BBC 
>>> content as I understand it?
>>>
>>> v
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