The United Nations says it has no plans to impose a tax on internet email, or any power to do so. What’s more, it says that the report that suggested that it might levy such a tax was an independent publication with separate editorial policies from the UN. Released on Monday July 12 1999, the Human Development Report noted the growing gap between developed nations with strong networked economies and the poor world, where internet access cannot be obtained. The Report noted that a tax of one US cent on every 100 long emails could raise $70bn a year to fund aid programs to help technology laggards.
The report was commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), but only four days later, the UNDP is distancing itself from its own publication. In the interim, the bit tax suggestion so annoyed US House Majority Leader Dick Armey that he wrote an open letter to his colleagues in Congress urging them to oppose the suggestion. US taxpayer dollars should not be used to support UN reports pushing this kind of redistribution policy, Armey wrote. Now UNDP administrator Mark Malloch Brown says: UNDP is not engaged now, nor does it plan to engage in the future, in any activity to implement or impose such taxation schemes on any person or group. Neither the United Nations now UNDP has the mandate or power to create or administer any system of global taxation.
