[governance] FW: TP: city government exercising policy on Google Applications / consumer rights / Consumer Protection Act / trial period

Lee W McKnight lmcknigh at syr.edu
Tue Jul 12 12:24:26 EDT 2011 

Milton,

Right.

Taxation is just part of - (multiple) governance regimes.  Their intersection and overlay however, is very rarely fixed in and around the Internet.

To say something is 'anti-Internet' because it applies a particular jurisdictions - regulations - in some form, for some defined subjects, who may be in a defined geography, in some sense, is divorced from reality indeed.

As to: 'anyone who advocates such a thing is anti-internet, anti-growth, anti-economy and/or has no clue regarding the practical consequences of what they are saying.'

But please tell me how you really feel? Please don;t hold back not to hurt my feelings over the conclusion one might draw from a ten year old paper.

Seriously, things are far more complicated than  you allude to, where we are heading is a world of governance challenges in which the Internet of Things (and people) intersect through virtual markets made by boundary-spanning virtual organizations, some fraction of which are corporations, most likely across wireless grids.  The Internet is just a small part of that - governance challenge.

So yes, worrying about networks and states is kind of old fashioned (Now I'm teasing, I'm teasing : )

And that future - of Virtual Markets and Wireless Grids - is the subject if my next couple books, which I pre-advertise here. ; )
 Cough Imperial College Press/World Scientific Press, forthcoming. Cough.

Lee


________________________________________
From: Milton L Mueller
Sent: Tuesday, July 12, 2011 12:09 PM
To: Lee W McKnight; governance at lists.cpsr.org
Subject: RE: [governance] FW: TP: city government exercising policy on Google Applications / consumer rights / Consumer Protection Act / trial period

Lee,
Keep in mind that the original discussion was not about taxation per se, but about _regulation_. No one in their right mind would support the idea that mere publication of an app by an innovator in, say, Mexico City should make that publisher subject to the regulations of a Thai municipality (and 100,000 other jurisdictions) simply because someone in Thailand accessed it over the internet. That is almost a perfect reduction ad absurdum of territorial government. I reiterate my perhaps blunt and deliberatel;y strong but fundamentally accurate charge that anyone who advocates such a thing is anti-internet, anti-growth, anti-economy and/or has no clue regarding the practical consequences of what they are saying.

Your ancient paper focuses on taxation, and doesn't really disagree that much, it proposes a "global solution" based on the location of the consumer. Thus it recognizes the inadequacy of trying to project the territorial status quo into the Internet space. One could pick apart the proposed solution pretty easily, but even if one accepts it, such a solution would require major institutional innovations regarding the collection and distribution of taxes. So it supports the argument, which I made more systematically in Networks and States, that Internet fosters new forms of governance that transcend traditional territorial forms of government.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lee W McKnight
> Sent: Monday, July 11, 2011 2:40 PM
> To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; michael gurstein; Milton L Mueller
> Subject: RE: [governance] FW: TP: city government exercising policy on
> Google Applications / consumer rights / Consumer Protection Act / trial
> period
>
> Hey,
>
> As seems to happen on occasion, Milton and I take different positions on the
> significance and suitability of location mattering in online sales (taxes).
>
> For a paper on this topic; albeit written several years ago, see:
>
> Title:        Sales Tax on the Internet: When and How to Tax?
> Author:       Uzuner, Ozlem; McKnight, Lee
> Issue Date:   2002-07-22
> Abstract:     As a first attempt to tax electronic commerce, many
> countries applied the existing tax laws to Internet. However, applying these
> laws to border-spanning electronic commerce proved very inefficient and
> inappropriate. While some authorities claim not taxing the Internet is the
> best solution for encouraging the growth of electronic commerce, we believe
> that use and sales taxes in general are an important part of a government?s
> revenues and that their ban over the Internet is not feasible. Given the
> magnitude of potential revenues to be obtained from sales over the
> Internet, we need to consider when and how governments should tax
> electronic commerce. We focus on some proposals which try to answer this
> question and argue that a taxation scheme based on the location of the
> consumer is the best starting point for a global solution.
> URI:  http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/1508
> Keywords:     electronic commerce, Internet, sales tax
>
> Lee
>
>
> ________________________________________
> From: governance at lists.cpsr.org [governance at lists.cpsr.org] On Behalf Of
> michael gurstein [gurstein at gmail.com]
> Sent: Monday, July 11, 2011 2:29 PM
> To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; Milton L Mueller
> Subject: RE: [governance] FW: TP: city government exercising policy on
> Google Applications / consumer rights / Consumer Protection Act / trial
> period
>
> No, I don't think so Milton. I think it is raising a very significant issue that
> someone somewhere has to be dealing with as a matter of urgency.
>
> If no one is currently dealing with it that is the problem not the fact that folks
> are raising it as an issue.
>
> MG
> -----Original Message-----
> From: governance at lists.cpsr.org [mailto:governance at lists.cpsr.org] On
> Behalf Of Milton L Mueller
> Sent: Monday, July 11, 2011 11:19 AM
> To: governance at lists.cpsr.org
> Subject: RE: [governance] FW: TP: city government exercising policy on
> Google Applications / consumer rights / Consumer Protection Act / trial
> period
>
> Well, let’s see, there are about 10,000 local jurisdictions in the United States
> alone. If someone has to contend with 10,000 X 220 (number of countries)
> differing and constantly changing laws and regulations and taxes, simply
> because it publishes an app on the Internet, then they will cease to exist as a
> viable business. I cannot imagine a better way to crush the internet
> economy.
>
> Now if an internet business owns real estate in a local jurisdiction, then of
> course it pays local property taxes, and if it employs in a local jurisdiction then
> of course that corporate entity conforms to local regulations pertaining to
> employment, etc. But not simply because someone in that jurisdiction uses
> the internet to purchase their goods.
>
> Really, the mere fact that we are asking these questions shows a certain level
> of innocence and lack of exposure to practical reality.
>
> From: Roxana Goldstein [mailto:goldstein.roxana at gmail.com]
> Sent: Sunday, July 10, 2011 9:08 PM
> To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; Milton L Mueller
> Subject: Re: [governance] FW: TP: city government exercising policy on
> Google Applications / consumer rights / Consumer Protection Act / trial
> period
>
> why not?
> 2011/7/8 Milton L Mueller <mueller at syr.edu<mailto:mueller at syr.edu>>
> Good god, let’s hope not.
>
>
> Do municipal statutes have jurisdiction over non-local global
>
> corporations with only a virtual presence/assets locally i.e. can a
>
> municipal tax apply to virtually supplied electronic apps for example?
>
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