Doyle backs two-year moratorium on Internet taxes
WASHINGTON (AP) — Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle joined a bipartisan group of governors and senators Monday in calling for a two-year moratorium on Internet taxes rather than a permanent ban.
Doyle backs legislation sponsored by Sens. Tom Carper, D-Del., and Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., both former governors, calling for the two-year moratorium.
The group argued that rival legislation to enact a permanent ban would exempt telecommunication businesses that are moving to the Internet, such as phone service and music and movie downloads.
That would cost Wisconsin more than $200 million a year, said Doyle, a Democrat in town for the National Governors Association meeting.
“This would do drastic harm to Wisconsin,” he said at a press conference. “We should be able to make these decisions as a state.”
Alexander noted that states, facing hard times, received $20 billion in aid from Congress last year. He said the rival legislation to enact a permanent ban could costs states $20 billion a year.
Participants at Monday’s news conference spent as much time criticizing the permanent ban legislation, sponsored by Sens. George Allen, R-Va., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., as they did pushing their own.
Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Republican, called the Allen-Wyden bill a “federal stop sign on a state road,” and estimated it would cost his state $100 million a year in lost revenue. He said governors are meeting with their state congressional delegations, urging them to back a two-year moratorium.
“This is one of those hidden, explosive issues down here,” said Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat, who estimated his state would lose more than $600 million under the Allen-Wyden bill.
The governors stressed that the aim was to maintain their ability to tax telecommunication, not tax Internet transactions. But the Carper-Alexander bill they advocate would include a grandfather clause for 11 states that already tax Internet access, including Wisconsin.
Doyle said the state collects about $6 million a year in such payments.
Allen spokeswoman Heidi Frederickson said Allen’s bill does not exempt taxation of telecommunication such as telephone calls on the Internet.
“This is an issue that Senator Allen looks at from a consumer standpoint,” she added. “Senator Allen is clearly focused on the side of the consumers; and Senators Alexander and Carper are on the side of the governors.”
Wyden did not return phone and e-mail messages left Monday.
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