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Dumb, Desperate or Good Idea? Calif. Councilman Proposes Email Tax to Keep Postal Service Funded

Mar. 8, 2013 2:55pm Becket Adams

A Berkeley, Calif., city councilman has suggested that an “email tax” might be required to keep United States Postal Service funded, CBS San Francisco reports, citing the blog Berkeleyside.

“District 8 Supervisor Gordon Wozniak,” the report notes, “made the comments Tuesday as city officials moved to halt the sale of a Post Office building on Allston Way due to a decline in business.”

“There should be something like a bit tax. I mean a bit tax could be a cent per-gigabit and they would still make, probably, billions of dollars a year,” Wozniak said. “And there should be, also, a very tiny tax on email.”

Aside from keeping the post office funded, an email tax would also discourage spam, Wozniak explains.

No, really.

Well, okay, maybe we should cut him some slack. After all, it’s not like it’s an entirely original idea: “…the idea was even studied by the United Nations in 1999 as a means of funding global communications infrastructure,” the report notes.

“The Postal Service, which suffered a $15.9 billion loss in the past budget year, announced plans last month to end regular Saturday mail delivery,” CBS explains.

“The delivery of letters and other mail has plummeted in recent years. Email has decreased the mailing of paper letters, but online purchases have increased package shipping, forcing the Postal Service to adjust to customers’ new habits,” the report adds.

However, it’s worth pointing out that, contrary what President Obama says, improvements in technology isn’t entirely responsible for USPS’ plummeting revenues.

“[M]uch of the service’s red ink comes from a 2006 law forcing it to pay $11 billion a year into future retiree health benefits, something no other agency does,” CBS notes. “Without that and related labor expenses, the mail agency sustained an operating loss of $2.4 billion last year, lower than the previous year.”

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RELATED:

Great news: Berkeley has a plan to save the postal service

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Comments (184)

MadPolock35
Posted on March 8, 2013 at 5:02pm
Here is the answer: Monopoly
1. exclusive control of a commodity or service in a particular market, or a control that makes possible the manipulation of prices. Compare duopoly, oligopoly.
2. an exclusive privilege to carry on a business, traffic, or service, granted by a government.
3. the exclusive possession or control of something.
4. something that is the subject of such control, as a commodity or service.
5. a company or group that has such control.

The government is upset that the USPS is no longer the MONOPOLY of mailings. They were still top dog when other companies came along because THEY were still handling the majority of all postal type of services. Then with Mr. Gores invention of the internet…/ lol.. The USPS has lost A LOT “sorry I don’t have the %” of revenue due to technological advances.
And now instead of “selling” the USPS to a company who will make it work or just dismantle it, they would rather spend money on a “lemon” to keep it running … just for…a … bit … longer. I suspect the same “monopoly” in the fuel game. We are having products like our vehicles, light bulbs, appliances and HVAC that are more efficient and in turn we use less fuel. So the govt. starts charging a carbon tax to offset what we would have lost. Which in turn we pay the EXACT same or more as before. They, the govt., have too much invested and too many special interest groups giving them money to actually be at the best in

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- MadPolock35
  Posted on March 8, 2013 at 5:25pm
  In continuation… Best intrest to our country. If you remember during our lovely cencus time. At the same time the USPS said they needed more money. Did they get it.. yes and no. No they didnt get it the conventional way in which it would be reported.. But the Govt sent out MULTIPLE letters saying you would get a letter soon, another letter saying it will be here soon, will be here soon. My family alone recieved between 8-10 cencus mailers. Who was paying for it.. the govt.. from one hand to another with no paper needed. The USPS got their money eventually. This is my opinion.
  
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nilo
Posted on March 8, 2013 at 4:57pm
Lets propose that “Councilman Tax”. Shut the Post Office down and turn the mails over to private enterprise — that the American way!

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- Soul Leister
  Posted on March 8, 2013 at 5:05pm
  yeah, any new tax proposed by a council member is paid solely by that council member, no one else (it has to come out of their wages… and there will be no pay raises while in office).
  
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Soul Leister
Posted on March 8, 2013 at 4:56pm
NO. These liberal communists need to be stopped… no more taxes to bail out their union thugs and their bloated pension schemes… if they had not wasted their pension money on lobbyists and political kickbacks to criminals in office they would be fine… NOT ANOTHER PENNY TO THESE CORRUPT POS.

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- Soul Leister
  Posted on March 8, 2013 at 5:02pm
  Clearly the leadership at the Post Office can’t do basic math… you can’t spend more than you have coming in… they need to scale back (like all real/responsible business’ do) instead of invent ways for someone else to keep your drug like spending problem throwing ever largers piles of money down a rat hole. You fake leaders should all be run out of town on a rail (tarred and feathered) you have no shame… only and insatiable spend spend spend habit that needs to be stopped.
  
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- Soul Leister
  Posted on March 8, 2013 at 5:03pm
  Its time to cul the herd and weed out the spenders.
  
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DebateMe
Posted on March 8, 2013 at 4:34pm
So, just another ‘teeny tiny’ tax to every email sent so that we can all keep propping up the totally broken pension USPS pension. Hey CA – you just had one of the largest historical tax increases in the history of any country. Maybe you want to take a couple of breaths before you start talking about another tax. Morons.

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Snaker
Posted on March 8, 2013 at 4:19pm
If Kalifornia would simply impose a STUPID TAX on all its elected officials,
(sorry Republicans, but there aren’t enough of YOU to make any difference,)
AND on the all PEOPLE WHO ELECTED THEM, they could pay off their
OWN DEBT, plus the rest of the NATIONAL DEBT, in about, oh, what,
4 months?

These Kalifornicators have been smokin too much of that imported
Colorado POT!

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Inform
Posted on March 8, 2013 at 4:14pm
We have enough taxes. 5 years after this one is passed, then the tax would be a dollar per gigabit.. Then another 5 years it would be 10 dollars. boiling frog, just like the social security tax was. If the postal service can’t survive, let it die! I’m sure they have too many 100k pensioners who retired at 50. Look at taxation of Social Security how it started at 1% on wages up to 3,000 and look where we are today. The return is horrible: http://www.youargue.com/index.php/48bz-social-security.html

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perry1980
Posted on March 8, 2013 at 4:13pm
And now we see another example of how California Got in the Tax Mess they are in now.
M0R0NS Abound out there

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smitty1007
Posted on March 8, 2013 at 4:12pm
And we should tax airlines to pay for road repair? How dumb can they get?
Put the postal deliveries on three days a week. Charge a minimum of $1.00 for any and all pieces of mail. This might cut down on the junk mail that we all must recycle.

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Inform
Posted on March 8, 2013 at 4:11pm
another half baked idea smoked up by a liberal. see, this is why marijuana should not be legalized.

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Kupo
Posted on March 8, 2013 at 4:10pm
Okay so let me get this straight. This person is recommending a 1 cent per gigabit tax on emails and suggesting that such a tax could generate billions of dollars per year? Let’s analyze this claim with some simple math:

Tax rate: 1 cent per gigabit
Avg. email size: 75 kilobyte
bit to byte conversion ratio of 8:1

(1 cent / Gbit) * (1 Gbit / million Kbit) * (8 bits / byte) * (75 kbyte / email)

= 0.0006 cents of revenue per email sent

To achieve one (singular) billion dollars of revenue:

(1 billion $ / year) * (1 email / 0.0006 cents) * (100 cents / $ )

= roughly 167 trillion emails per year that need to be sent. That is about double the email messages that are sent worldwide on a yearly basis, including spam messages. And that’s for just 1 billion dollars in revenue, let alone the multiple billions he is envisioning. Somehow I don’t see the population of California being able to achieve such traffic.

Feel free to check my math and point out any errors, but I don’t think I made any.

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- Joisey
  Posted on March 8, 2013 at 4:49pm
  You can be sure that when the tax actually goes into effect, it will be a lot higher than they are admitting to now (just like with Zerocare). They always start out promising a teensy, tiny tax, and it always grows bigger every year after it is enacted.
  
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Small World
Posted on March 8, 2013 at 4:05pm
Calif. what a shock! We the people need to tax these idiots every time they come up with a new way to sc@#w us.How about we the people start taxing the unions.

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Exrepublisheep
Posted on March 8, 2013 at 4:03pm
That sort of tax would require the government to know what you’re sending others and how many bits it’s comprised of. Certainly no Congress or president would ever allow that to happen.

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FightingBear
Posted on March 8, 2013 at 4:01pm
I have always thought the USPS to be the best bargain on planet Earth. When you can have a letter picked up at your door in Key West, FL and have it delivered to your Grandma’s door 3,458 miles away in Seattle, WA within a week and for less than 50 cents…that, my friends, is a bargain.

That being said, when the Post Office can no longer self sustain, it’s time to make some changes or shut it down completely. When a business can no longer maintain profitability, it is time to change your business model or shut it down. (Personally, I hope they can continue to find a way to remain a viable option.)

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msjoe43
Posted on March 8, 2013 at 3:54pm
The USPS is not allow to make a profit…. by law.

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- Eastinfection
  Posted on March 8, 2013 at 4:07pm
  that law is about as useful as legislation outlawing Chris Matthews from becoming a ninja or a point guard in the NBA.
  none of those things will ever happen anyway.
  
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- smitty1007
  Posted on March 8, 2013 at 4:15pm
  They should be not allowed to have a loss – by law!
  
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lel2007
Posted on March 8, 2013 at 3:43pm
Rather than proposing new things to tax,wouldn’t it be more direct for government to collect all income directly from its source, then return what they think the income earner needs?

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BIGDAN63
Posted on March 8, 2013 at 3:41pm
someone needs to tell me what the US Postal Service actual do, cause late week I receive a Christmas card that had a postal stamp on it from Dec 17, 2012. So why are we funding a private company any, they can’t deliver the mail on to or to the right address half the time, but they aspect the country to fund their overly generous pension plan, next thing you’ll see is some big named Hollywood actor having a televised benefit to keep it from going under

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Gildersleeve
Posted on March 8, 2013 at 3:40pm
Raise taxes on all the freaking companies that sent junk mail.

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Snowleopard {gallery of cat folks}
Posted on March 8, 2013 at 3:40pm
Dumb and desperate idea.

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woodyee
Posted on March 8, 2013 at 3:32pm
I think the postal service can be saved. I always consider their potential usefulness in the midst of a catastrophic event.

But their Union is fuuuuuuuuuuuuu(shut you mouth!) UP! Over-paid and doing little more than raising enourmous funds for DemonicRats, while the union promotes sloth and stifles initiative. And so’s their management – My bud says his friend (a mailman) tells him that their bosses are ruthless slave-driving incompetents. they can sure use improvement in customer service. I stopped using them after they lost one package and damaged another within a 30-day period.

The LAST thing they need is to start supporting some idiot’s idea of imposing an internet tax to keep their unions living fat on the hog.

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Ghandi was a Republican
Posted on March 8, 2013 at 3:31pm
There are actually people around thinking this stuff up. Freaks.
Meantime they invoke the postal services shortfalls, WHILE trying to tax (and hurt) internet sales which is basically extreme low variable cost for the post office (free money). The postal service could also be more pro-actively co-operating with some of the private services for rural and residential deliveries. Does it really make sense for UPS AND fedex to be driving big trucks around various neighborhoods where the post office is going anyway? It’s wasteful and redundant, and the post office could be saving them, and earning themselves $$$ Billions.
Local communities wouldn’t be having these revenue problems if Washington wasn’t constantly stripping their tax base. which continually depletes the revenue circulating cash. Which BTW is one of the progressive alinsky objectives to Centralize Washington in our lives. Cut off the head of the snake and all will be well..

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boss_ross
Posted on March 8, 2013 at 3:29pm
how about…let it die. All the USPS does is bring me things to throw away. I don’t even look at it…right to the trash it goes.

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AmericaMustBeFree
Posted on March 8, 2013 at 3:27pm
What a moron!! How about instead you idiots charge people to have their mail delivered! Its an easy fix, but we have retards for lawmakers! You charge boxholders to walk a few feet to deliver their mail, yet drive miles upon miles or walk miles upon miles to deliver free mail! Give me a break!

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- woodyee
  Posted on March 8, 2013 at 3:33pm
  Free mail?!? Have you seen the price of a stamp lately?
  
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watashbuddyfriend
Posted on March 8, 2013 at 3:25pm
What is it going to take get get idiots, like this Berkeley, Calif., city councilman’s attention, and move them out of the way?

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CascoBay
Posted on March 8, 2013 at 3:24pm
I’m shocked! What’s next? Government health ca…oh wait…What next? Taking away the payroll t…oh wait…good lord…Is there ANYTHING these idiots won’t tax? PLEASE! Make it stop!

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Joisey
Posted on March 8, 2013 at 3:24pm
One issue that everyone else seems to have missed is the incredibly burdensome and intrusive infrastructure the government would have to create to enforce this tax. Anyone using email would have to let a taxing authority monitor their communications. Even if they don’t look at content (which you know would be abused) they would still be tracking where you are, the size of the file you are sending, who you are sending to, and who you are receiving from. And from here, it would be a small matter for the government to start taxing your downloads. Then to pay the tax, everyone would have to have online accounts that the government would have access to make automatic withdrawals from, like an EZ Pass account. Once the tax is in place, government can ratchet it higher and higher to discourage the people from freely communicating with each other.

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- AmericanStrega
  Posted on March 8, 2013 at 4:02pm
  You’re right.
  
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