cdru
Go Colts
Premium,MVM
join:2003-05-14
Fort Wayne, IN
1 edit | reply to gpancner
Re: If you can't drop your own rates....
said by gpancner  :It's about making the satellite subscribers pay the same tax amount that cable subscribers do. Satellite companies must lease/purchase frequency/orbital positions in order to broadcast. Cable, since they aren't using public airwaves, don't have these expenses. Should the satellite companies lobby to have a tax levied on cable companies to help make a level playing field? No. The expense in acquiring the rights to transmit are part of the operating expense of the company, as is the cost of the satellite, launch, uplink facility, etc. Just like cable TV has the head end, telephone poles, buried cable, franchise fees, etc. It's just the cost of doing business.
I don't have a problem, other then having to spend more, with charging sales tax on the service equally for both satellite and cable service. But the "satellite tax" isn't a sales tax, rather a thinly vail equivalent of a franchise fee. Cable companies make a franchise agreement with the city that usually says in exchange for the cable company carrying PI channels and paying a fee, the cable company gets exclusive rights for cable service and public right of ways to lay cable. Essentially a monopoly on local service. What would satellite companies get out of the deal? They already have airwave rights, purchased/acquired through the FCC. They use no local infrastructure. There is no reason for the satellite providers to pay the tax. |
