Posts Tagged ‘tax’

Money Does Not Equal Fairness or Justice

Friday, August 12th, 2011

The national debt is about $14.5 trillion, and each person’s share is about $45,000. If someone proposed taxing each individual $45,000 to pay off the debt, nobody would think this a fair proposal. We expect those who have more to also pay more taxes. But in many other areas, everyone has to pay the same amount. The equal dollar in the legal system creates numerous injustices.

Finland fines people for speeding based on their income, so very rich people can pay over $100,000 for a single speeding incident. Some are worried that other EU nations will refuse to enforce Finnish fines, breaking the European Union. The idea is controversial and is unlikely to be applied here in the U.S., but it deserves consideration. If we cannot make fines fair based on income, perhaps we can base them on the price or class of car.

Even the tax system is not as fair as many believe.

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ISOC-NY: Building Tomorrow’s Broadband, Part II: All Infrastructure Projects Are Corrupt

Friday, November 19th, 2010

(For Part I of this report, see: ISOC-NY: Building Tomorrow’s Broadband, Part I: The Networks)

While everyone in theory understands that the internet brings wealth and business and tax dollars, far too many governments are trying to tax it in ways that could kill it in their area. Recently, the state of North Carolina lost a lawsuit in which it tried to collect taxes on sales to North Carolina residents by Amazon, which is based in Washington state.

Newby’s Allied Fiber avoids very serious government regulation by providing only the core of the network and not trying to build the last mile. Few appreciate the scale of regulation in the last mile. Donny Smith of Jaguar Communications in Minnesota has a fiber network covering almost 10,000 square miles (a 100 mile by 100 mile area). He told me a few years ago that he had to deal with:

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