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[The Senate Thursday passed the bill that
would extend for four years the moratorium on discriminatory Internet
taxes. Leahy has been a leader of the effort that put the
moratorium in place in 1998 and that renewed it in 2001. He is also a
leading sponsor of the moratorium extension bill the Senate is about
to pass. The moratorium expired last November. This bill (advanced by
Senators Allen, Wyden, Leahy, McCain and others), would reinstitute
the Internet tax moratorium. Here (below) is Leahy’s statement on the
bill:]
Statement Of
Senator Patrick Leahy
On The Internet Tax Non-Discrimination Act
Thursday, April 29, 2004
MR. LEAHY: Mr. President, I am pleased
to cosponsor and strongly support the Internet Tax Non-Discrimination
Act, S.150. I thank Senator Wyden, Senator Allen, Senator McCain and
others for their leadership on this legislation.
I also support Senator McCain’s
compromise amendment to extend for four years the moratorium on taxes
on Internet access and multiple and discriminatory taxes on electronic
commerce. In addition, the McCain amendment would safeguard fees for
universal service and 911 or E-911 services and does not affect the
emerging technology of Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP).
I urge the Senate to support electronic
commerce by keeping it free from discriminatory and multiple state and
local taxes and from Internet access taxes.
The Internet has changed the way we do
business. Today businesses can sell their goods and services all over
the world in the blink of an eye. E-commerce has created new markets,
new efficiencies and new products.
The growth of electronic commerce is
everywhere, and it has been important to the businesses and the
economy of my home state of Vermont. For example, the
Vermont Teddy Bear Company, which employs more than 300 Vermonters,
sells online 60 percent of its bears during its two busiest times of
the year for Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day. That’s 60 percent of
all Vermont Teddy Bears sold online during this busy time.
Hundreds of Vermont
businesses are selling online, ranging from Al=s
Snowmobile Parts Warehouse to Ben & Jerry=s
Homemade Ice Cream. These Vermont cybersellers are of all sizes and
customer bases, from Main Street merchants to boutique entrepreneurs
to a couple of famous ex-hippies who make great ice cream.
What Vermont online
sellers have in common is that Internet commerce allows them to erase
the geographic barriers that historically limited our access to major
markets. With the power of the Internet, Vermonters can sell their
products and services anywhere, anytime.
Although electronic commerce is
beginning to blossom, it is still in its infancy. Stability is the
key to reaching its full potential, and carving out new tax categories
for the Internet is exactly the wrong thing to do.
E-commerce should not be subject to new
taxes that do not apply to other commerce. Indeed, without a
moratorium, there are 30,000 different jurisdictions around the
country that could levy discriminatory or multiple Internet taxes on
E-commerce.
Let=s
not allow the future of electronic commerce -- with its great
potential to expand the markets of Main Street businesses -- to be
crushed by the weight of discriminatory or multiple taxes.
Extending the bar on Internet access
taxes will help Vermonters end the digital divide and help Vermonters
compete for better jobs. Recently the University of Vermont released
a study that found only 39 percent of Vermonters who earn less than
$20,000 a year have personal computers, while 67 percent of Vermonters
who earn more than $35,000 a year own personal computers. And 92
percent of Vermonters who do own a computer are connected to the
Internet. We have to close this digital divide for Vermonters to have
the skills for the good-paying jobs of the 21st Century.
We need to bar Internet access taxes and
multiple or discriminatory taxes on goods and services sold over the
Internet to provide the stability necessary for electronic commerce to
flourish, and to help close the digital divide for all Americans.
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