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Franchise Tax on Internet Services
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As of March 5, 2008, the AlternaTax software has been acquired by KPMG LLP. For more information about KPMG and AlternaTax, please visit http://alternatax.kpmg.com. KPMG LLP, the audit, tax and advisory firm (www.us.kpmg.com) is the U.S. member firm of KPMG International. KPMG International's member firms have 123,000 professionals, including 7,100 partners, in 145 countries.
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Both states and localities have traditionally levied franchise taxes on utilities and cable television operators. Prior to the Internet Tax Freedom Act, many municipalities were studying the possibility of extending their franchise taxes to either ISPs, their customers, or both. The greatest practical problem associated with the collection of franchise taxes is the multiplicity of potential levies on a single retail customer; the ban on multiple taxation in the Internet Tax Freedom Act is a response, in part, to this issue. A correlative issue is the compliance burden on ISPs who must deal with competing franchise taxes in thousands of local jurisdictions, although the likelihood is such a burden would be passed on to customers.
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