If we adapt some well know Bob Dylan lyrics to ‘Everybody Must Get Stoned’ and replace the word ‘stone’ with ‘tax’ we have some reality of how governments are viewing the new utility of broadband and Internet revenues.
They'll stone you when you're walking on the street
They'll stone you when you're trying to keep your seat
They'll stone you when your walking on the floor
They'll stone you when your walking to the door
Everybody must get stoned
France is considering taxing Google and Yahoo on advertising revenue. The tax collected would supposedly go on ‘saving the creative industry’ from a ‘free-for-all’ internet culture. The ‘Google Tax’ is expected to raise between €10m and €20m a year. The inference now is that US-based operators have to reconcile how many French web users were being engaged by the advertising. The question of how the government will audit the tax due is questionable but id it were successful then other countries and maybe the EU are bound to follow.
Not to be undone the UK government want to still tax UK businesses to ensure 90% of the UK is connected to super-fast broadband by 2017. They intend to levy a 50p-a-month tax on telephone lines under this ‘Next Generation Fund’ and ‘broadband tax’. It is claimed by the opposition that 4.8 million businesses in the UK will pay £1,500 a year as a result of the plan.
The UK government must be really looking forward to the day that the majority of books are digital as this would also raise more tax as currently physical books unlike digital ones are not subject to tax
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