And they still can't tell us how much money it will bring in or how they plan to enforce it...

=)

I am curious why a tax like this would not be considered a tax on freedom of speech and therefore unconstitutional under the Constitution of the United States....

I'm still waiting to see exactly how the city plans to identify and tax *just* the telephony part of our broadband usage. How, precisely, will the city identify Skype video calls? ISPs don't break out this information. What if I have a voice or video chat over instant message with the folks back home? Are these not taxed because I don't have to pick up a physical telephone to make it happen? That would defeat the purpose of "modernizing" the tax, wouldn't it.

From the city's own Measure T fact sheet:
"Any technology that provides telecommunications will be uniformly taxed. Private telecommunication services as well as data transmitted over telecommunication lines will also be uniformly taxed."

When the city gets into the logistics of actually identifying what, specifically, will be taxable under this law -- and discovering that it's almost impossible to identify -- I fear that the outcome will be what we were promised it would not be: a 3% city tax on all Internet usage.

What is wrong with you people, voting to TAX yourselves rather than ask the dear old City of MV to just get rid of 1/3 of an over-paid "police dispatcher"?? This is a business-UNFRIENDLY tax, particularly to small or individually owned business. LARGE cos. like Google and Microsoft WILL NOT PAY A DIME, as they own their own servers. Only the rest of us wil be hit! It is utterly ridiculous and I can't believe anyone would vote for this. It's obviously a ploy to keep union salaries high in MV. There was no "threat" to the traditional telephone tax. One other thing, this tax will likely rely on self-reported usage as it is NOT POSSIBLE to distinguish between phone calls made over the internet and other broadband usage.

I don't see much difference in Measure T than updating an existing law to tax horse and buggies to establishing DMV fees for automobiles. If communication of yesteryear was marked by the telephone, than communication in this internet age will be marked by instant messaging, VOIP, internet chat, etc...

Granted, the law is lean on specifics and the details will need to be worked out, but with the rapid changes occuring in our society due to technology, I think its a good sign to see governmental bodies trying to adapt as best they can.

it is not only 'updating' and existing tax, but expanding it... due to the inability of the city to (in most cases) distinguish between data and voip usage, a more accurate analogy would be the state expanding the gasoline tax to all corn purchases if people starting refining their own ethanol. I'm surprised by the extension to interstate and international calls... does this not violate the commerce clause?

I see your point in the shotgun approach to taxation, but the Measure is very specific regarding its aim, taxing phone calls made over the Internet. How this will be achieved remains to be seen.

Also, in the case of Measure T, you the consumer aren't growing or generating anything, you are using a service on which other services like VOIP conduct their business.

Taxing VOIP is no different than the nickel and dime taxes we use to see on our phone bills, or still see on our cable bills.

bravo to local mom....well said

Here's some more info on how VOIP would be taxed. From an article on Measure T that was in the Voice way back in July:

"From a taxation standpoint digital voice data is indistinguishable from other digital data being transmitted over communications lines," writes Kevin Woodhouse, the assistant city manager. That means that if your VOIP service is bundled with your Internet service, "the tax will apply to all data being transmitted." But that can be helped if your VOIP and Internet service provider accounts for VOIP data and Internet data separately. Only some service providers have promised to do that, the report adds.

As one of the signers of the argument against this tax expansion, I'm curious: Can folks here say what were the top one or two arguments that convinced you to vote for this tax?

Also, I'm noticing that there's way more discussion of the details of Measure T now that it has been passed than there was before the election. My guess is that it's because people were too busy with living their lives to think about it before the election, but it has now been brought to the forefront of their attention because everyone had to give it some thought on election day? Is my guess correct, or ???

To Mike L., I put thought into it before election day, and I voted against it. I just couldn't believe all the positive press the Measure was getting and wasn't sure how to comment on that! Should've started a "No on T" campaign...