From: nobody@REPLAY.COM (Anonymous)
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 02:06:44 +0800
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: Net Papa: Global Internet Taxes Inevitable
Message-ID: <199709091757.TAA26157@basement.replay.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain




   (09/09/97; 12:00 p.m. EDT)
   By Douglas Hayward, TechWire

   GENEVA -- Internet taxes are inevitable, according to the man dubbed
   the "Father of the Net." The only way to avoid global chaos is to
   create an international agreement on how to do it, added Vint Cerf at
   a meeting of the Internet Society here. Cerf co-developed the
   TCP/IP[LINK] protocol on which all Web and Net transaction depend.
   
   ...Taxation of the Internet, also called "bit taxes," must be well
   planned, Cerf said. "And it must also be thought through on a global
   scale -- not parochially," he said. In the United States. alone, there
   are 30,000 taxing authorities that might be interested in taxing
   transactions on the Internet, said Cerf, adding that right now, there
   is no way to determine which of those authorities should have
   jurisdiction over a particular transaction.
   
   ..."If something is becoming an infrastructure that is important for
   people's daily lives, then governments will have the right to be
   concerned about the public's safety and well-being," Cerf said. "When
   you build roads, you make rules about how people are to behave on
   these roads, in order to protect people." TW

http://192.215.107.71/wire/news/1997/09/0909tax.html