IP: The "plot" thickens Internet taxation, meaningless polls

[David Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

>
>Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 10:28:00 -0700
>To: farber@cis.upenn.edu
>From: Jim Warren <jwarren@well.com>
>
>
>Interesting that AP would carry results of a "net-tax" poll, this morning.
>Yesterday afternoon, I submitted my monthly tech-public-policy column for
>December's MICROTIMES, explicitly exploring this issue.  Some points:
>
>* About a year ago, the Republican-controlled Congress and Democratic Prexy
>enacted a temporary, 3-year prohibition on taxing net-stuff, and set up a
>commission to study the issues and report to Congress about 6 months from
>now.
>
>* Apparently ignoring this -- or planning for its end-point -- less than
>two months ago, senior Democrat Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-SC) submitted a bill
>to impose a 5% national sales tax on out-of-state net-based sales (and also
>on catalog sales).
>
>* Senior Republican Member Dick Armey (R-TX), the House Majority Leader,
>seems to be making a high-provile <sic> pitch that the Internet Tax Freedom
>Act should be made permanent. It's one of only three "agendas" on his
>"Freedom Works" website (via www.house.gov, go to "leadership offices" then
>to "freedom works").
>
>*Armey and 35 co-signatories sent a letter to the commission, dated
>*yesterday*, *bluntly* telling the commission that it should stop studying
>*how* to tax the net and start studying what the problems would be if it
>*were* taxed.
>
>It's interesting to note that the AP "poll" appeared ONE DAY after Armey's
>co-signed letter.  Either the AP did one damned fast poll (with the errors
>typical of haste), or ... <gasp!> could the poll and the letter possibly
>have been orchestrated by collusion between the Beltway press and the House
>Speaker? (SURELY that could NEVER happen! ;-)
>
>--jim, Jim Warren
>Contributing Editor & technology public-policy columnist, MicroTimes Magazine
>Also GovAccess list-owner/editor; 345 Swett Rd, Woodside CA 94062
>
>[Of course, December column covers a lot more than just these tidbits.]
>
>
>
>
> >>From: "Gillmor, Dan" <DGillmor@sjmercury.com>
> >>Reply-To: farber@cis.upenn.edu
> >>To: "'David Farber '" <farber@cis.upenn.edu>
> >>
> >>Dave, many newspapers around the country ran an AP story this morning that
> >>showed overwhelming opposition to taxation of products and services sold on
> >>the Internet. It's a classic lesson in why polling can be misleading:
> >>
> >>http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/columns/gillmor/docs/dg091599.htm
> >>
> >>   QUESTION: Would you like to pay higher taxes?
> >>
> >>   Answer: Uh, is that a trick question?
> >>
> >>   Survey researchers recently posed a query like that to active Internet
> >>users, asking if they favored a national sales tax on online purchases. The
> >>results, released on Monday, were scientifically valid in their narrow
> >>context -- and about as meaningful as a Republican Party analysis of Bill
> >>Clinton's record.