[IP] more on IRS eyes Net phone taxes
Begin forwarded message:
From: David Mercer <radix42@xxxxxxx>
Date: July 7, 2004 8:21:06 PM EDT
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [IP] IRS eyes Net phone taxes
At 08:57 AM 7/7/2004, you wrote:
...... Forwarded Message .......
From: Kurt Albershardt <kurt@xxxxxx>
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Date: Wed, 07 Jul 2004 08:09:05 -0700
Subj: IRS eyes Net phone taxes
The IRS and Treasury Department notice, called an advance notice of
proposed rulemaking, asks for comments from the public no later than
Sept.
30. Bradshaw, the IRS spokeswoman, said "we're requesting the comments
so
we know what issues to look at."
Hi Dave, leaving aside for a moment how I feel about taxing VOIP calls,
the
last paragraph of this piece disturbs me greatly. I thought taxes
needed
to be decided by our representatives, you know, as in "No taxation
without
representation?"
This is yet another clear example of how deeply the Congress has
abrogated
their legislative function to the Executive Branch. It's much less
risky to
get reelected if you left the details to the 'regulation' implementing
the
'law' you passed. And we all know that the Devil is in the Details, no?
Ye gods, half the things we worry about on IP and Politech should be
decided
by Congress, not some quickie 'rulemaking process'. We're all bound by
those
regulations just as tightly as if they were actual statutes, so why the
hell
does no one have to vote on them? They are where the economic winners
and
losers under almost every new statute is actually determined, Congress
seeming
to merely decide the budget and rough areas that monies are to be spent.
Let's see, war-making decisions delegated largely to the Executive,
check...
legislative function likewise relegated to an un-accountable
bureaucracy, check...
hmmm, from reading history that sounds a damn lot like a classic
imperial
form of govt. We aren't there in an external sense, else we'd have been
levying a nice tax on our 'allies' for their defense the last 40 or so
years
in Asia and Europe. But our internal form of govt. is very clearly no
longer
a Republic, and our elections serve merely to rubberstamp the next
selected
batch of oligarchs.
Both parties want an ever larger govt. to put it's noses into more and
more
things. Remember, when everything is political, everything is subject
to
politics: just ask anyone who lived behind the Iron Curtain how that is.
And while we have FDR and LBJ to thank for most of the damaging
structural
changes that have led to this, GOP presidents haven't been noted for
dismantling
the sources of their new power either (certainly not THIS one!)
Unfortunately
I don't see any candidate or party anywhere on the landscape who'd have
it
otherwise, except perhaps some dogmatic, extreme fringe parties who are
wholly
unelectable.
Yes, all that triggered by that one, short paragraph. The 'rulemaking
process'
is IMHO a symptom of how deeply we have sold out our own revolution.
Cheers,
David Mercer
Tucson, AZ
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