U.S. Opposes New Taxes on Net Commerce

The growing business of doing business on the Internet poses a major challenge to tax collectors, but no special taxes should be imposed in cyberspace, the government said in report. “Treasury believes that these new technologies should not be used to justify new taxes,” the Treasury Department draft report said. Instead, the current system should evolve to tax income from all sources in a consistent manner, the department said. This year, about $1 billion of goods and services will be sold online, growing to more than $7 billion by 2000, according to market researchers at Jupiter Communications. But the myriad tax laws and regulations affecting businesses may not keep pace with the fast-paced, often chaotic growth of the worldwide computer network. The report is available on the Treasury’s Web site: https://www.ustreas.gov