EU Lawmakers Consider Taxing Emails, SMS Messages

[Jerry Raia]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=internetNews&storyID=2006-05-26T121239Z_01_L26740888_RTRIDST_0_OUKIN-UK-TELECOMS-EU-FUNDING.XML' target='_blank'>http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=internetNews&storyID=2006-05-26T121239Z_01_L26740888_RTRIDST_0_OUKIN-UK-TELECOMS-EU-FUNDING.XML</a><br /><br /></div><i>"European Union lawmakers are investigating a proposed tax on emails and mobile phone text messages as a way to fund the 25-member bloc in the future. A European Parliament working group is reviewing the idea, tabled by Alain Lamassoure, a prominent French MEP and member of the centre-right European People's Party, the assembly's largest group. Lamassoure, a member of Jacques Chirac's UMP party, is proposing to add a tax of around 1.5 cents on text or SMS messages and a 0.00001 cent levy on every email sent."</i><br /><br />This idea has of course floated around in the States too. I doubt it will ever see the light of day in the US but I'm not so sure about the EU. I think it is a horrible idea of course. What do you think?

[gerlinda]

As queen of text messaging I must say this is a God aweful idea

8)

[Sven Johannsen]

This comes up every year or so and the bottom line is, how do you collect it? Unfortunately SMS might actually be possible as most providers already charge for this by the unit, and the providers tend to be entities within countries. Given that it is easy to add a tax by the unit. E-mail is tougher, whether you try to charge the sender or the receiver, how do you charge someone in Germany for e-mail on a server in the US? How do Germany and France collect from MS for Hotmail when someone from Munich emails someone in Paris via their hotmail accounts? The only enforceable collection would be within country and that would drive internet commerce out. Probably not a wise tradeoff.

[Mike Temporale]

Good point Sven. I guess SMS would be the real concern. I think it would be better to increase the overall tax levied on carriers by a small percentage, instead of placing a tax on text messages. Not that I want to pay anymore tax or anything.