Press 'send' and pay your dues

If you would like to comment on this post, please give your credit card number to the government. That might sound like a joke, but it is a serious proposal that is circulating among high levels of -- you guessed it -- the French state.

The idea is to levy a small tax on every email and telephone text message. It was publicly aired a few days ago by Alain Lamassoure, a former Budget Minister from President Chirac's UMP party who is now a senior member of the European Parliament. He is drafting the Parliament's proposals for new methods of financing the European Union. Not surprisingly, Lamassoure's idea has caused a storm in the French blogosphere and it made the national news this morning, but he's sticking to it (alain.lamassoure.com).

Interestingly, France's state radio reported on the scheme at the same time as it interviewed Didier Lombard, the boss of France Telecom, on the company's launch of a global digital-everything network under the brand name Orange. The timing was a good case of ancient France meeting the modern.

Lamassoure's scheme belongs to the old tax-everything tradition that passed down from French kings to the centralised welfare state, run by graduates of the Ecole Nationale de l'Administration (of which Lamassoure is of course an alumnus). He points out that nations have always levied taxes on the wealthy and the value-creating sectors of the economy, from salt excise in the middle ages to Europe's valued added tax on phone-bills. Chirac has, for example, just imposed a tax on airline tickets to help the developing world. Most of the French left wants to tax international financial transactions in the name of the same cause.  Lamassoure proposes a charge of about 0,15 euros on a telephone text message and a very low rate of 0.00001 euros on every courriel, as email messages are officially called in France. This would help finance the European Union budget as well as filling national state coffers. 

"A small tax on text messages between Paris and another French town could be allocated to the French Government, but taxes on emails and texts from Paris to Rome, for example, could me paid to the European budget," he said.

Lamassoure is now stressing that email tax is just an idea, though he argues that it would be technically feasible. It is hard to imagine how email traffic could be tracked and counted. Imagine coughing up every time you press send on a Blackberry. And how about taxing voice-over-internet conversations ?

It is interesting to note that French indignation over the tax idea is not universal. A minority of French internautes supports the scheme on the grounds that the low rate would not hurt email users and would mainly penalise the capitalist corporations that generate big volumes of email. Hostility to levies on text-messages -- already expensive and used mainly by ordinary citizens -- does seem unamimous. 

This all reminds me of a crack-pot law passed by the Belgian government -- a tax happy country like France --  when I was living there in the late 1990s. This was a tax on every computer screen. It was abandoned when a trial run found companies locking their computers in closets when inspectors arrived.

Comments

[Robert Marchenoir]

This proposal is immensely stupid. We are lucky to have a technology, the Internet, which radically lowers the cost of doing business, and enables ordinary citizens to exchange ideas for very little money.

That was too good. Let us tax the whole contraption.

Remember: once created, a new tax almost never goes away, and almost never goes down. Do not let yourselves be fooled by the seemingly low percentage which is put forward right now. If this becomes law, be assured that politicians will not resist tweaking that number upwards for long.

However, I have to take exception with the French and European-bashing tendency oozing from this post.

The idea of levying a fee on e-mail -- and a much higher one at that -- was not aired for the first time in France, but in the U S of A. And not by an evil, meddling government, but by a tiny, fledgling business named AOL.

That proposal was, like Alain Lamassoure's, accompanied with a large dollop of good intentions: providing certified, spam-free mail.

And it came with the same seemingly liberal, socialist-minded intentions: do not worry, only big corporations will really feel the pain, and they can bloody well afford it; the little guy will be unharmed.

But still. It amounted to the same: artificially raising costs of a technology which is key to creating employment and promoting democracy.

And it was met with the same outcry.

[John Hornsby]

I already pay an "impôt de solidarité sur la fortune" - i.e. surtax - despite living on two-thirds of a pension in a modest bungalow - because my wife happened to inherit her parents' house a few years ago and I feel a little indignant about this latest measure. I say "a little" because France has sunk so low (I see the rot as beginning during Mitterrand's second "septenant") and is so cribbled with debt that I am more anxious about how much longer my pension will be paid (since there is such an army of unemployed, both real and 'professional') than about a relatively trivial, cobbler's patch.

[Julian Smi]

Supposing this was portrayed as the sender of an e-mail paying for 'postage': one idea for choking the flow of spam by making the spam factories pay a fortune. Would you still be calling it a crackpot idea?

[GAG]

Alain Lamassoure’s proposal, as bizarre as it seems, is surely a response to his administrations’ need to secure more money. As with many European governments, the existing French incumbents have demonstrated that they are incapable of managing public funds. It is depressing to think, that once again, the French people are being asked for more, while the ruling elite carry on with wasteful spending, often designed to reflect their own glory.
Ironically, you won’t hear many voices raised against Lamassoure’s proposal in France. People are used to underhand taxes, which in a country where only 50% of the inhabitants pay tax on earned income is not surprising.
Rather than taxing e-mails and text, if the government requires more money, may I suggest it considers the following taxes:
Tax on political naiveté.
Tax on political dreams.
Tax on infantilism in politics.
Tax on political lies.
Tax on budyism in politics.
Tax on corruption in politics.
Tax on misplaced loyalty in politics.

I estimate that if the correct evaluation system is applied to the taxes cited above, each day of political coverage in the French media of both politicians and journalists should realize the required taxation income to support the state for one week. Utilize this taxation system and we will happily only be subjected to politicians in the media for on average 53 days per year.
GAG

[Tara Lane]

I suppose one good outcome would be the reduction of forwarded emails, with the Joke of the Week we'd all read last year? It might also serve to prevent people from pressing "post" over and over in frustration on certain blogs, with the result that the same person posts the same message several times.

All in all, sounds rather stupid, and it seems like there's another way to handle the problems I already mentioned.

I profess to know little about economics, but it seems to me that levying a tax doesn't help that particular industry (such as visiting developing nations) - it would only make me want to do that particular action less. Is this not something they'd thought about?

[Sarah Hague]

The Government would receive a lot more sympathy if it clamped down on waste, mis-use of public funds, cheats, wasters and fictitious jobs. It might find it didn't need to search so hard for obscure new ways of raising yet more money. Heavens, they'll be taxing windows soon...

[Robert Marchenoir]

"They'll be taxing windows soon" (Sarah Hague).

I do not know whether this was intended as a joke or a historical reminder, but just in case, there has actually been a tax on doors and windows in France.

Admittedly, it was a long time ago (do not ask me when).

It was not very different from the present poll tax, whereby the bigger your house, the more you pay. So it was a lot less stupid that it sounds. The negative side effect was that people tended to build houses with too few windows, which led to unsanitary dwellings.

Of course, everybody knows that nowadays, the real tax on windows is levied worldwide by Microsoft Corp.

[john gregory Flinn]

I want to vent my ire at this EU "agreement" to furnish 48 bits of information (including credit card details) to the american authorities about air passengers to the US! Luckily it was thrown out by the European court, but on a technicality, so it will come back.
I realise its not a tax, but its a stealth measure to release personal information that I thought was protected by law.

[Valentin]

I second that - it's outrageous !

[Frank Schnittger]

The idea of a 0,15 Euro levy on a text message costing c. 0,05 Euro at the moment seems crazy. It would quadruple the cost - and probably decimate the number of texts actually sent.

Most Spam email is generated from servers located in remote unregulated countries - how could you collect a tax incurred in a foreign country? The recipients don’t want the mail so you can hardly tax them!

One idea which would make more sense though would be to tax mobile phone companies on their roaming charges between EU countries. These are planned to go down as a response to EU pressure - and thus consumers are actually going to benefit. If the EU announced a tax on such charges the Mobile companies might decide to eliminate them altogether!

We currently pay a television licence fee (in Ireland) regardless of whether you actually view the National broadcaster’s programmes. Most households are gradually watching less and less TV - with consumers moving to the internet where they can obtain content more tailored to their individual tastes. Soon we will start throwing out our TV's and watching the news on the internet. Will our Governments then try to replace the tax on TVs with a tax on PCs?

Governing elites don’t like the internet – it is a medium they have never been able to tax or control effectively. It has become – in a few short years – almost the defining technology of our civilisation – bypassing most Official Channels. Something must be done!

[Colin]

Good to see that there was an outcry in France. Hopefully any outcry in France would create strong echoes elswhere. Why does the EU need even more money? They have a lot from the VAT levies and other national sources and really we should not allow them any more. If desperate, they could always cut out the ridiculous waste that flows from the Strasbourg shuttle.

[Tim Worstall]

As I mentioned at the Adam Smith Institute blog yesterday, the true stupidity of Lamassoure is that he directly compared is to a Tobin Tax (a tax on currency exchange). The aim of a Tobin Tax is to reduce the amount of activity that goes on...specifically and deliberately to stop people doing so much of it...not to raise revenue.
So here we have a senior French politician insisting that we should slow down or reduce the exchange of information. Either that or he doesn’t know what a Tobin Tax is, which isn’t all that encouraging either.

[colin grayson]

un courriel ? well , I live and learn ! french politicians swiiming against the tide as usual ; asked a few neighbours what the official name for an Email was ....they didn't understand the question !

but to more serious matters , for the first time I sense that the gallic shrug of the shoulders to the machinations of their politicians is on the wane ; maybe there is going to be a french revolution after all

[Peter Carrington]

This proposal is another sad reminder that sections of the French political establishment have still not realized that we now live in a global world and that France is no longer, if it ever was, a sealed little bubble in which they are free to impose whatever demands they want on citizens and businesses.

A tax on French emails would simply cause businesses and individuals to move to web based email systems located on servers outside France, and would provide a real incentive for suppliers of such systems to develop new variations of externally domiciled web based email specifically tailored to meet the needs of French users. The net result? No tax revenue for the government and a further erosion of French commercial activity as the current France domiciled suppliers of email services see demand for their products dry up.

The technological and commercial absurdity of this proposal is so blindingly obvious that I conclude that either it is simple grandstanding and that its authors know it has no prospects of working or, more worryingly, that they are even more dangerously divorced from reality than we realize.

[Sarah Hague]

Robert, yes, it was a historical reminder. I like to introduce the odd intelligent remark from time to time...

Can I ask people about whether they are working on Monday or have to take the day off to look after schoolchildren? Seems there is a huge muddle concerning the Pentecote ex-jour ferie.

[Frank Schnittger]

I think its time we introduced some lateral thinking to this blog. If the Americans want 48 pieces of information on each passenger we should charge them $48 dollars for the privilege. (If they try to pass on the charge to travellers tourism to the US will plummet - and it will cost them even more). The Lamassoure tax should apply only to Official courriel between Officials - thus helping to reduce the level of bureaucracy. People who send e-mails - and who don't know what a courriel is go tax free because their e-mails will be routed by non-official servers in third countries. We reintroduce the tax on Windows (of the Microsoft variety) and stop all those expensive court cases. (This will help reduce Bill Gates' headache about what to do with all his Billions). Everybody wins.

[Sandrine]

Sarah Hague, I won't work next Monday, because my daughter's school will be closed. But anyway, I would have taken a RTT. I didn't want to lose that "jour férié".

[Rob]

But of course, it makes sense! There are nothing but positive arguments for it:

1, it will increase the amount of money going to the government – which is already bigger than half the GNP in France and the wizards from ENA are running out of ways of taking even more off the private sector;
2, to tax emails, you must be able to monitor them. This will enable the French govt to fund the process of collecting, stocking and monitoring all of our communications, thus feeding the thought police with more information than they could dream of;
3, spammers will have to pay – or if not, their messages will presumably be prevented from being distributed through the national servers – so even those wicked people based in rogue nations tolerant to spammers will not be able to get their stock tips and cheap med ads to your inbox (now there really does lie a good idea);
4, those who are penniless will be unable to communicate (or is it the other way around?);
5, the sacrosanct “Langue de Bois” (literally “Wooden Tongue”, a popular phrase that would appear to describe either a) an incapacity to communicate openly that afflicts most senior managers and politicians dealing in France or b) a skilful manner of not talking about sensitive political issues that gives the uninitiated interlocutor the impression that the subject must surely be of grand importance. It’s still out for call) would be preserved or even enhanced by 1) a disincentive to communicate and 2) the possibility of monitoring and chastising those who dare;
6, emails to your lover will be a quantifiable cost for the divorce lawyers to justify compensating your spouse;
7, the leaking to marketing companies of archived copies of emails you’ve sent to your lover will provide a supplemental revenue to rogue functionaries. Suddenly you’ll start getting spammed with special offers on sophisticated cosmetics and sexy underwear, not to mention meds that will 1) improve your stamina and 2) rid you of your paranoia – the latter probably having a nefarious effect on the former;
8, ok, so I’ve probably gone on a little too long – which had I been paying for it, you would have been spared, so ttfn and vive Lamasseuse (sic)!

[GAG]

Sandrine. As you are aware, solidarity is an important word in the French vocabulary and the loss of Pentecote as a holiday was intended to aid France’s aged population. So would you agree that all those who refuse to give up Monday’s holiday are selfish and don’t give a damn for their old people ? Or, as is the culture here, is someone else to blame ?
GAG

[Sandrine]

GAG (what a funny nickname btw, what does it mean ?)

I'm totally aware that solidarity is important for the French, BUT I'm also pretty sure that there are other means to help aged population. What does the government want exactly ? Maybe we could also give another holiday in order to help young people from the banlieues. And so on...
Who said that the French were those who are the most taxed by their government ? What do you think GAG, is it really the best way to help aged people ? We could also show them solidarity directly in OUR family. People don't take care of their own family, but the government should do it ?

During the "canicule", I used to call and to help my grandma (I love her so much !!) everyday, why did some people just left their parents or grandparents alone without help ? What kind of solidarity is that ?

[Sarah]

GAG, I think you might have hit the nail on the head there. I read that many unions are allowing employees to add on minutes over the year to their work to enable them to take a painless RTT for the Pentecote holiday. This seems to totally defeat the object of the exercise of working for nothing to pay for help for the elderly. As you said, solidarity is an important concept, but it's SEP (someone else's problem).

[Victor Tan]

What continues to astound me is the futile exercise of French politicians and fontionnaires in thinking of devious ways of TAXING the people and businesses.

Isn't it about time they think of ways to encourage the people and businesses to CREATE wealth, thereby creating more tax revenues for the state? I have stated many times in these blogs that the French politicians are bankrupt of IDEAS to run the country.

I suggested previously that they should be turned out to grass, but I think they deserved to be sent to the gallows!

[Gareth]

hahahahahaha
that's magnificent...

I'm moving to England