House Majority Leader Dick Armey has become the first US Congressional official to call the United Nations on its proposal to levy an email tax. The UN suggested raising money to address the growing gap between rich nations and the developing world by imposing a tax of one US cent for every 100 emails. Armey is predictably outraged. Every time you turn around, it seems there is another agency or bureaucracy looking to get its greedy mitts on the internet through new taxes, Armey wrote in a letter to his colleagues in Congress.
Armey acknowledged the huge disparities in income created and fostered by a networked economy: Rich countries have more access to the internet than poor countries? Of course! he wrote. But he insisted that: Taxing the internet is not the way to expand its global reach… Armey even questioned the UN’s right to reach such conclusions, given that it is member-supported. US taxpayer dollars should be used to support UN reports pushing this kind of redistribution policy, he asserted, before concluding: I urge the Administration to reject this report and the policy suggestions it makes.
