Imagine if every single e-mail you sent was taxed. That may sound crazy, but so did the whole idea of taxing income before 1913.
Wednesday we told you about plans by some in the U.S. Senate to stop the extension of the Internet Tax Freedom Act (search), which expires Friday. What we didn't tell you is that one senator has gone a step further by proposed a tax on your e-mails.
At a Senate hearing on spam in May, Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., suggested "looking at some very, very small charge for every e-mail sent."
Now think of how many billions of e-mails Americans send to each other every year. After a while even "very, very small charges" could add up to billions of dollars.
In fact, taxing on the Internet may be one of the most effective ways to get money from working Americans. That's why politicians and lobbyists are pushing to open the door for Internet taxes. And it's a bi-partisan push. Those leading the charge to kill the Internet Tax Freedom Act include Republican Senators George Voinovich and Lamar Alexander, and Democratic Senators Maria Cantwell and Kent Conrad.
If you want to send them an e-mail, you better do it while it's still free.
And that’s the Asman Observer.
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