Tax of the day, episode 327

"I suggest this as an idea not only for the EU but also for member states themselves and on the worldwide scale"

-Alain Lamassoure, French MEP

If anything shows signs of success, EUtopians try to tax it - and the export the same failed concept to make it seem universal and thus reasonable even when it isn’t:

"A small tax on an SMS from Paris to another French city could be allocated to the French government, but taxes on emails or SMS messages from Paris to Rome could be dedicated to the EU budget," he said.

"In France an SMS costs 15 cents. We could tax it by 1.5 cents, or less," the MEP added.

For email, the rate could be as little as €0.00001. "This is peanuts, but given the billions of transactions every day, this could still raise an immense income."

How typical. Plus, I doubt it would really raise much revenue. If you send 274 emails a day for a year, the tax would be €1. At most this is €100 M per year – “peanuts” -, much of which would be spent collecting it and extorting it out of ISPs. It wouldn't deter spammers since a million emails would only cost €10 in tax and make legitimate their dark art.

“peanuts”

The fuse is lit!