Taxes On Consumer Electronics and Telecommunications

Adam D. Thierer and Berin Michael Szoka, the Progress & Freedom Foundation, have published The Wrong Way to Reinvent Media, Part 1: Taxes on Consumer Electronics, Mobile Phones & Broadband, in volume 17 of the Progress & Freedom Foundation on Point (2010). Here is the abstract.

 

In this essay, we discuss an old idea that's gained new currency: taxing media devices or distribution systems to fund media content. We argue that such media income redistribution is fundamentally inconsistent with American press traditions, highly problematic under the First Amendment, difficult to implement in a world of media abundance and platform convergence, and likely to cause serious negative side effects.

Download the article at the link.