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Comment by saurik | Hacker News Reader

If you read the actual thing instead of this stupid clickbait article the idea is to tax revenue from text messages in a similar manner to taxing revenue from phone service, so if you think taxing phone service isn't horrific then neither is this. The article is just super confused as it is like "this will probably be a flat tax, not per message" as if that is up in the air: it is a tax on revenue, so how it would seem in the end to a user would be related to how the user was being billed (per message or a flat rate for unlimited messages). Honestly, cell carriers are probably making tons of profit off of text messaging in specific that they don't deserve to make and it isn't clear to me they can pass more cost like this to a consumer as I bet they have already optimized for "what is the most we can charge", so I would be surprised if this even gets passed on to consumers at all.

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> if you think taxing phone service isn't horrific then neither is this

I don't think taxing incomes is horrific. That doesn't absolve politicians of justifying raising taxes. This is a money grab. Given how wastefully California burns through cash, I'm not sure why (a) more money is needed or (b) this, specifically, is the way to do it. Why not a gas tax? Or a carbon tax? Or a tax on water-wasting crops?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_tax_revenue_by_state

(2015) California Revenue per capita is $10,408. Texas, the second largest state by economy in total money, is $10,204 per capita, the average is $10,234. Incidentally, California is very slightly "better" at 16.6% GSP than Texas at 17.1% GSP, and further better than the average of 18.3% GSP.

If this is a "money grab," they've got room for it, compared to other states -- say Delaware or most of the South, for example.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_budgets

Meanwhile, California spends $4,636 per capita on the state budget, ranking 15th lowest of the 50 states. So again, not really "burning through cash."

As is mentioned every time California's or blue states' budget and spending are brought up, blue states tend to give more federal money whereas those fiscally conservative red states tend to take in more federal money.

As for if this is the way to do it; yeah, seems a little like extra taxes on faxes home phone service at this point -- diminished returns at best.

*faxes or home phone service

oops

>> I bet they have already optimized for "what is the most we can charge", so I would be surprised if this even gets passed on to consumers at all.

It's a surcharge (the bill is linked down-thread). It's passed on to consumers by definition. If it works the same as MTS, it would be a statutorily capped fee. "The most we can charge" is a different number from the most a consumer would willingly pay with complete information. Surcharges are not included in advertised prices, and can therefore be used to affect price obfuscation. This is why my 34.99/mo pre-paid plan cost $48.12. Because it is a fixed amout, it also makes pre-paid plans less competitive with higher margin credit based plans.

Perhaps the the US should join civilized societies and demand advertised prices be tax-inclusive. Otherwise it's just false advertising.

No, I want to see when stupid politicians keep slapping arbitrary taxes onto different common items.

I think taxing phone service is horrific. But what is worse is the mention of a five year retroactive tax in this new plan.

My local only landline costs $35 a month with $10 of that being a lot of different taxes. Seems like a lot to me in this world of cheaper unlimited long distance cell phone plans, but I like the landline for having subtle, IRL like conversations with people on the phone without the lag an other problems of cell-to-cell conversation.

there is already a tax on phones, not they are merely separating each function the phone can do with the same bandwidth and taxing it. Here is a great resource for understanding just how much we are already taxed to use our cell phones [1]. Table 6 may shock you.

of course it is passed onto consumers, all taxes are. embedded taxation is how governments are able to put large tax loads on a populace without them realizing it.

[1] https://taxfoundation.org/cell-phone-taxes-2018/

We already tax incom. Why tax every individual product with specific taxes as well? Seems redundant and a waste of time. Same for the phone tax.

Because with taxes we can discourage consumption of certain products. For instance taxes were used to discourage the production of white phorsus matches, because they melted the worker's faces.

But this isn't a case where we want to discourage people from having texting.

Maybe something about a surveillance state. Might be easier to Snoop on a messager app rather than good old sms.

I'm sure it's easier to snoop on SMS because we're talking about telcos, which definitely have rich histories working with the government. (Remember snowden leaks/verizon?)

Messaging apps on the other hand are what the govt generally CAN'T break into.

Doesn't white phosphorus spontaneously combust around 90 ℉?

I agree. In other cases it’s just a money grab - like this one.

Yeah, going through the comments, its pretty clear how many people didn't actually read the article and are just making knee-jerk reactions based on the clickbait headline.

I thought HN readers were better than this.

> Honestly, cell carriers are probably making tons of profit off of text messaging

And calls, for that matter.

I pay $35/month to Google Fi just for text/phone. You know how many SMS messages I send per month? Probably a couple dozen. Most of my messaging is through Facebook, and it's rare for me to actually make phone calls. It's all data.

That is the cost for two lines, right? Just think of it as a baseline cell cost of having a signal. Voice and sms data is small so they just include it in the price to compete with others. Then $10/Gig for data. Does not seem so bad. I think it is a decent deal.

Err yes it is two lines.

And yeah, it's a decent deal, especially since my data bill is capped, and international data has no extra charges. I only travel internationally once a year, but it'll be really nice when I do.

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