Re: [hackathon] One Tax API Hackathon proposal

["Charles Eckel (eckelcu)" <[e-mail]>]

Thank you Benson for championing a project in the Hackathon and for announcing it on the list. Thanks as well to everyone who has constructively and respectfully provided their input on various aspects of the project.

As others have said, it is intended that projects be related to IETF work and standards. This is intentionally broad and meant to provide guidance and set expectations for those considering leading or joining projects in the Hackathon. Collaboration with people from other organizations (e.g., SDOs, open source communities, etc.) is encouraged.

Ideally and typically, Hackathon projects advance the state of past, current, or future IETF work. If a project brings people together and helps determine there is nothing to do at this time in the IETF, that is not necessarily a bad thing, especially if it results in an improved understanding of the space or helps determine a more appropriate direction for the project.

Cheers,
Charles

On Sep 26, 2021, at 1:04 PM, Phillip Hallam-Baker <[e-mail]<mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:

Well there is this.

Congress Considers A Tax On Email (April Fool's Day Edition) (forbes.com)<https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2015/04/01/with-deficit-not-going-anywhere-congress-considers-a-tax-on-email/?sh=1e42500816d3>

I suspect that at this point you will find that you run into the fact that just because a government would like to tax something, that does not mean collection of the tax is feasible.

In general, the IETF has been hostile to taxes and charges for use. The US, or at least the part of the deep state that is interested, has also been very much opposed to anything that might constrain communication.

A large number of governments have a monopoly tele communications provider that has historically provided significant revenues from various telephone charges. These fees have often been oppressive, $3/min for international calls. And of course much of those fees have been diverted into the pockets of corrupt government officials.

Governments have been proposing ways to claw back those fees for the past 25 years and the US and other countries have made sure those proposals go precisely nowhere but the ITU provides a pretty good forum in which they can go nowhere.

Sure, in the present Internet design, some functions like SMTP are sufficiently visible to be able to tax use. But those functions have increasingly been obscured by cryptography.




On Sun, Sep 26, 2021 at 1:45 PM Benson Muite <[e-mail]<mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
Dear Phillip,

Thanks for your feedback. OASIS ( https://www.oasis-open.org/ ) may be a
good second step. Many countries at present are proposing flat taxes on
digital goods, such as hosted email and cloud compute rental. What will
the revenue collection agencies adopt to fulfill their missions in these
cases? Will this be something that is developer friendly, efficient and
secure? Can we make it easier by developing a prototype?
_______________________________________________
hackathon mailing list
[e-mail]<mailto:[e-mail]>
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/hackathon
Unsubscribe: mailto:[e-mail]?subject=unsubscribe