The Wrong Way to Reinvent Media, Part I: Taxes on Consumer Electronics, Mobile Phones & Broadband
Adam Thierer & Berin Szoka
March 2010

Thierer and Szoka present the first in a series of articles on “how to save the media.” The FCC is currently accepting filings for a May 7 deadline regarding its “Future of Media” event. The filings will be used to determine what steps the FCC should or should not take to help direct modern media.

One proposal to save media is to tax devices. Thierer and Szoka present the case in this first article that taxing devices that act as intermediaries for media or taxing the distribution systems in order to support content creation is “fundamentally inconsistent with American press traditions.”

The authors report on the suggestion by Robert McChesney and John Nichols of Free Press, who wrote the book “The Death and Life of American Journalism,” to create a “public works” tax for press. The plan calls for:

1. A 5 percent tax on consumer electronics
2. A 3 percent tax on monthly Internet service & cell-phone bills
3. A 2 percent sales tax on advertising
4. And a 7 percent tax on broadcasters

The model essentially is based on BBC radio and television taxes. But because people can “watch television” on practically any device these days, Thierer and Szoka said the plan to “save” media entails taxing everything.

They conclude that “the more control politicians have over funding media, the more control they will inevitably have over media itself.”

The full article is here.