PPI Senior Fellow Hal Singer was quoted by the New York Times in a piece on how reclassifying the Internet as a public utility may hurt the wallet of consumers:
The Internet Tax Freedom Forever Act, according to Hal Singer, an economist and senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute, “limits the damage” from Title II regulation and its tax implications. Mr. Singer is the co-author, with Robert Litan, an economist and nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, of a recent study that estimated the potential cost to consumers of Title II regulation of Internet service. (The Progressive Policy Institute’s supporters include the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, which opposes Title II regulation. A spokesman for the institute, Cody Tucker, would not identify its financial backers, but he said that the research organization receives more funding from foundations, individuals and corporations that support Title II classification for broadband Internet service than oppose it.)
The potential pitfall, Mr. Singer said, is that the Internet tax freedom law mainly bans “general sales taxes,” but there is still room for states and municipalities to assess fees that are related to the “obligations of a telecommunications provider.” In their study, the two economists assembled a database of the taxes and fees states place on phone bills, and then assumed those charges would be levied proportionately on Internet broadband service.
Read the piece in its entirety on The New York Times.
