Email tax

Hey all. I was wondering if anyone else had heard of this. Some time ago, I began receiving some disturbing email about Congress trying to pass a law that would allow the government to put a tax on each email sent in response to the recent decline in snail mail communication. Access to the internet has spread like wildfire, and I guess the government feels it's missing out on revenue that could be brought in via a tax of this nature. The email went on to suggest that the recipient contact their local Congressman to vote aqainst such a proposal. Did anything become of this? Anyone else receive an email like this? Was it real or just spam? I don't remember hearing anything in the news about it.

After I did a little research I found this to be merely a rumor, aka SPAM.

Supporting documents here :)

http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/postoffice.htm
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/blemtax2.htm

Hope set some at ease with this post as your email will remain "free".

As far as i know, the emails were just SPAM and rumors.

My understanding is that the USPS increased stamp prices, due to low volume of snail mail sent. They claim they are losing business to email....which is understandable. I wouldn't be suprised if after a few more penny increases on stamp prices, that they might start to look into an email tax.

I first read about the email tax back in 1995 when I was just begining my Computer Science major and spent a lot of time online between classes. I think it might have been thought about briefly but I do not think it would go over well with the populace -nor do I think it would be easy to enforce.

Cheers,
-D

sounds wierd!!!!
this has 2 b a humor

The email was a hoax. digitalgadfly listed some good urls. I always visit the alt.folklore.urban website when I look for new hoaxes. Their Urban Legend Zeitgeist is a great source for new hoaxes. They address the email tax legend here.

Just speaking from common sense, though, how would anyone ever implement such a system? This would require all internet transmissions to pass through a bevvy of state sponsored "postal" servers to be metered. The infrastructure alone required to implement something of this magnitude makes one shudder. Even then, how would you enforce that all transmissions were going through said servers? I'll concede that it may have been though of at one time by grossly uninformed lawmakers, but it has since gone the way of the dodo.

:bigsmile:

Yeah ros, I didn't expect that it was 100% true. Sometimes there is a sliver of truth in things like this. It just turns out to be grossly exaggerated most times. I was just wondering if there was any truth to it at all, even if it was actually that ISPs were going to put some sort of a fee on emails sent through their servers...btw, thanks for the hoax site.

Another good urban legend site: www.snopes.com
Lots of interesting information, and in some cases the truth is stranger than fiction.

don't do that!!!!!!


you scared me for a lil bit

rofl


thanks for all the good links guys/gals!

its my understanding that the postal system is not for profit. obviously, its run by the government which really dosn't seem able to do anything without spending more than its worth. if the demand for a public postal system decreases, the post office will just downsize. if demand decreases that much, it'll probly get sold to private carriers, who will turn a profit. so there's no need to tax the internet for lost revenue, its not a buisness that has to profit.