The Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act (PITFA) H.R. 235, is scheduled to be addressed by the House of Representative on Tuesday, June 9. Currently, the Internet Tax Freedom Act is set to expire on October 1, 2015, as extended by the “Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015,” enacted in December 2014. The original legislation banning Internet access taxes was first enacted in 1998, and since then has been extended multiple times, each time with overwhelming bipartisan support.
PITFA would ban federal, state and local governments from taxing Internet access charges, as well as from assessing multiple or discriminatory taxes on electronic commerce. Were the ban allowed to lapse, state and local governments could move to enact taxes on Internet access, as well as other Internet-related activity, such as bit taxes, bandwidth taxes, or email taxes. Also, most Internet Service Providers, which are not currently collecting sales taxes on Internet access charges, would have to establish internal systems to collect and remit sales taxes.
CompTIA has consistently urged Congress to pass a Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act so that the Internet remains unburdened by a complicated patchwork of federal, state and local taxes.
