House Votes: Four More Years of No Net Access Taxes

Check the bill your ISP sends you every month and you'll notice there are no taxes listed on it. That's because in 1998, to bolster the then-nascent web, Congress voted to suspend taxes on Internet service. However, that law is finally set to expire on November 1. The good news is that the house has agreed to continue that suspension, at least until 2011.

By a vote of a whopping 405 to 2, the House overwhelmingly decided to extend the tax ban, though some legislators are upset that the ban wasn't made permanent. (Who voted against it? California's Anna Eshoo (pictured) and Ohio's Michael Turner. Since Eshoo is based in Silicon Valley, I have to assume she pushed the wrong button... right? Update - But seriously, Eshoo is the author of the Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act and voted against it because she felt the bill didn't go far enough to protect consumers. Apologies for the bad joke.)

From here, the bill has to head to the Senate, and it's unclear whether the Senate will get to it before the November 1 deadline, but given the broad support the bill has, it's pretty certain it will pass sooner or later. Whether taxes will be levied beginning on November 1 if it's "later" is another question altogether.

Also note: This tax ban is not the same as the sales tax ban on merchandise sold via the web and shipped over state lines. That issue is considerably thornier, as it involves a 1992 Supreme Court ruling that exempted companies for collecting taxes in states where they don't have a physical presence. However, it's likely that situation will change somewhere down the road.

LINK: House OKs four-year extension of Net tax ban