Materials listed under "Digital Divide"See the entire Internet Tax Briefing Book, with pdf files.SF BAND's Accessible Format version of the Internet Tax Briefing Book To: the Internet Caucus Advisory Committee, Subcommittee on Taxation From: San Francisco Bay Area Network on Disability (SF BAND) Subj: For the briefing book on Internet Taxation--perspectives of persons with disabilities I found that persons with disabilities represented by the San Francisco Bay Area Network on Disability are opposed to internet taxation in any form and for several reasons. Remarks by these constituents have largely paraphrased and grouped under your briefing book headings to the best of my ability, but you may want to put it all under the section on DIGITAL DIVIDE, inasmuch as my constituents all felt that internet taxation would be a specific hardship for the disability community. We depend disproportionately on the internet when we can get there, most are very low income and would lose what we have gained should internet usage/sales/access be taxed. -- Jean Nandi San Francisco Bay Area Network on Disability (SF BAND) 1) TAXES - sales taxes -- [These remarks apply equally to use taxes] Through the Internet, persons with disabilities are finally becoming freer of the service paradigm. We can make real choices and compare information outside the service perimeters. In 1960, most workers with mobility disabilities worked in sheltered workshops--a step above making license plates. Today, we can go to the Internet to buy stuff, from innovative adaptive equipment to prescriptions. Why is this important to the poorest group of people in the country? Well if I wanted the factory cane holder on a wheelchair, I might pay $160 for the durable medical equipment one. With the Internet, I might be able to find a wheelchair accessory that made my life easier for under $30. Shopping on-line is imperative for me. This save immeasurable energy and costs. It is often cheaper to shop on-line. Taxing products sold on-line is unthinkable! Saving the tax dollar by shopping on-line is the same as ordering by mail order and not paying the tax. On one product alone I save $150 by buying on line. This was not a medical product...however, ALL medical products sold on-line should NEVER be taxed. If cash is spent at a medical supplier the tax is exempt...so should the Internet sale be waived. 2) TAXES - access taxes-- Access taxation is just one more unfair tax, and it will affect poor people and people with disabilities disproportionately. An informed public should have more than one way to find out about needed information and services. Taxing those efforts would enrich the taxing agencies, but would do little for the persons using the access resource. As a blind person, it takes me a much longer time to locate and search out information on the web. This is because I use speech output from the screen and am therefore forced to listen to a great deal of information before deciding on what I want or need. Sighted people on the other hand, can just "Point and click" there mouse on what they are looking for. This additional time, online, if taxed, would be in my opinion, a most blatant form of discrimination. I would imagine that people with other types of disabilities would have similar opinions about this. Additionally, since much of what goes on the internet involves academic research, to tax that is also a grave injustice and should be discouraged at all cost! Should it ever be considered to charge for the time spent on-line other than the basic cost of paying server fees is so abhorrent. At last, I can afford to pay for groceries rather than telephone bills! This is a meager existence, living on benefits however, I feel now that I am on equal footing with the rest of the world. On the internet my disability doesn't show...people are not leery of my purchases and wonder if I can pay the bill...I am just another consumer who is purchasing an item for their own need or their business need...the on-line shopping power is incredible. Many of the stores where I used to shop are not accessible or I could not reach the shelves...now, on-line the only reaching I have to do is to the keyboard. The only access I need is Plain Text options. However, access standards are also critically important, as most disabled people still do not have use of a computer or on-line shopping for poverty reasons. 3) FAIRNESS/"LEVEL PLAYING FIELD" As it stands now, as far as I can tell, if you live in the state where the company you are purchasing from lives, you pay sales tax. However, you do not have to pay sales taxes if you buy from companies in other states. If we were traveling and purchased something from a company in another state, we would pay the tax of that state. Now the question arises, should we pay the tax of the state the company is in or the tax of the state we live in or nothing at all? I think, nothing at all - at least until they put the same tax proposal on things like infomercials, catalog sales, and shopping channels on television. These usually have interstate sales and should be regulated in the same way internet sales are. In addition, I have seen international sales through catalogs and stuff like newspaper insert ads (check your coupon sections of the Sunday paper). If the government is going to add tariffs or whatever to international internet sales, the same should be fair for ALL international sales. Apparently in Europe a "value-added" tax is added to ALL sales, regardless of whether they are internet/catalog sales or elsewhere. Should we adopt such a system, services or block grants provided by the Federal government could then go back to the states based on such federal excise taxes. This would, of course, mean altering the taxation system overall, not just on the Internet, which would probably be the only way to secure fairness for business throughout the country. 4) ECONOMIC IMPACT - for the individual-- Even if taxes are not paid directly by the end user, they will be passed on in the form of higher prices. The last increase in Social Security was pretty nice, yet within 60 days, my bank added more charges to my accounts, the grocery prices are higher, gasoline prices are outrageous, and nothing has stayed the same in pricing for clothing or medical supplies and prescriptions. The only justification for these increases is the greed factor. The employees in the various companies are not getting huge wage increases. The CEO and high level managers are making fabulous salaries and perks that will never be seen by most of us. [In other words, there is an economic impact on employees as well as customers.] What's the point? In the end, we will be taxed for something else or we will be charged higher prices so that the providers can cover the cost of the taxes they pay. 5) ECONOMIC IMPACT - on sales-- How is the government to collect the tax? Is an expensive screening process established so only people with full time staff or advanced experience can set up a legal reporting system? Monitor credit cards? The most healthy set-up in business would be to support a diversity of sizes. We have to reward and support free lance innovation because it will give us the creative edge in the long run. Will we drive innovators and creative people out of this market place place? 6) REAL WORLD EXAMPLES OF IMPACT ON BUSINESS Are we killing the golden goose? Will we drive the innovators and creative people out of the market place or to another place? We do not live in an age characterized by picking up a shoe box, going on a street corner, and polishing shoes to get started on the road to wealth. While I am a strong supporter of urban planning, today it would take an investment with permits and leases just to polish shoes on a street corner. The Internet is one of the few places that the little guy can get a start. Supporting home-based businesses is one answer to the huge unemployment (over 70%) rate of workers with disabilities. Although home based working is not for everyone; there are many societal benefits derived from encouraging a number of responsible adults to be in a residential setting. But will taxing these businesses push them over the edge of nonperformance? 7) DIGITAL DIVIDE One prominent advocate from our network stated: "The Internet has opened a new world to people with disabilities. There are many reasons to say that now is not the time to stifle or mess with a good thing that has many other benefits that generate wealth and taxes." Another added that "I think we have more than enough taxes to pay now. While I understand that the federal and state governments are always looking for revenue sources, I think they need to look to those who can afford to pay higher taxes." Telecommunicating is something that many of us [persons with disabilities] want/need to work. Therefore, a careful approach on designing policy and regulations is essential. Taxing the Internet for any reason, as with any tax, will open the door for more and continued taxation. Prior to the Californai 1978 Jarvis/Gaines-Proposition 13 when property taxes were so high, whenever a governing body wanted more revenue they just added another tax on real estate. If there is an internet tax, it must be capped and controlled in some manner--limited. As a disabled person living on disability benefits, it would be a hardship for me to pay a tax. The Internet is my lifeline as I am mostly housebound. If a tax were levied, a discount of some sort as is done with PacBell and PG & E should be given to low-income and disabled/elderly people. [And then, next question, how would that be achieved? -- J. Nandi] As a person with a disability, I am already fed up with the lack of enforcement of laws concerning us. The laws are on the books and are either unenforced or the letter of the law is adhered to so closely as to make the spirit of the law invisible. Regardless of what it is called, discrimination is any act, overt or covert, that results in a person with a disability or a member of any minority group appear to have less right to anything that any other person can get without effort or by simply showing up to get it. [Internet taxes would end up being discriminatory.] |