Congress Is About to Decide Whether to Tax Your Internet

Uncle Sam may start charging you for the right to access the Internet. Or you might soon find yourself paying a sales tax on purchases made at online retailers like Amazon and eBay.

Depending on whom you ask, the two issues are either completely unrelated or close cousins. The first is a sort of doomsday scenario that would come to pass if a long-standing federal ban on charging a tax for Internet access isn't renewed by Congress. The second will become reality if an online-sales-tax bill, supported by brick-and-mortar retailers, gets passed as a piggyback measure to the ban. Before Congress flees Washington to begin its final burst of election-season campaigning, it must address the ban on federal, state, and local taxes on Internet access due to expire on Nov. 1. This ban prevents localities and all but seven states from charging you a sales tax for your Internet hookup in your monthly bill. Few in Congress want that ban to expire, but in the face of the looming deadline, lawmakers have decided to do what they do best: Punt.