by Linda Smith

Created on: April 15, 2008

Exactly whose government would do the taxing? The United States? Great Britain? Japan? What about Argentina or Brazil or Mexico or Canada? The internet is global, is it not? I belong to a social site that has members from around the world. I've seen that there are members from African countries, South American, European, Asian and even one I don't have a clue where it is. I belong to a business site that has members from around the world. How in the world would any one government levy a tax on the internet? And, exactly what would be taxed? The invisible airwaves? Individual sites? It doesn't make sense to think that this phenomenon could be taxed.

How would such a program be monitored? If, for instance, the United States was the tax-levying country, would it tax only sites that originate in the U.S.? Would it levy a tax on only certain types of sites - such as business or entertainment? Would it levy tax on only U.S. internet users? What about user from other countries who log onto a U.S. based site? Actually, the "site" is not "based" anywhere but on the internet. So are we talking about taxing the originators of sites? What about individual web sites in businesses that offer self-replicating sites to their people? How would that be tracked? What agency of the government would be given the enormous job of monitoring such a monster? How would you enforce payment?

How ugly would it get if every country in the world that has a presence of any kind on the internet jumped aboard the tax levy train? Would I as a user, have to pay a tax to various countries depending upon which sites I logged onto? How would I know which government was due the tax? If I had a business on the internet and depended on a global marketplace, would this necessitate my having to generate some kind of complicated program in my business to make sure I collected the correct tax from the right people to then be paid out correct country? And, exactly, what is the tax? An internet use tax?

Why does the question even arise? Why does everything we humans do have to fall into the category of taxation? Can there not be something we do that isn't a money generator for an umbrella governmental body? Taxing the internet just doesn't seem very possible or viable.

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