The notion that any sales transaction conducted online should automatically include a type of “sales tax” is once again becoming a secret topic of conversation among US government officials and lawmakers. A recent news story posted on September 29, 2014 on the obscure website LiveMint in combination with the Wall Street Journal is bringing the issue into the forefront once again .
According to the article, Forbes magazine is estimating that freelancing services conducted through “sharing websites” like Fiverr, Elance and Airbnb is now reaching record levels of some $3.5 billion annually, just in the United States alone. Fiverr offers all kinds of products and services starting at only $5, and Airbnb is a site where people can rent out their homes to vacationers whenever they like.
The trouble is that the participating entrepreneurs on sites these sharing websites can actually modify or reduce their prices almost at will. In theory, a freelancing professional can actually operate their business at a financial loss simply to corner a specific area of the marketing sector. The fear of the FCC is that these types of peer-to-peer business transactions will eventually undercut the more traditional companies offering the same types of services, companies which are actually paying income taxes.
Is this fair? Or will the average consumer be at a higher risk of witnessing a decline in the levels of professional services by the related “brick and mortar” establishments as a result? According to an article on Newser of the same September 29, 2014 date, government regulation may be necessary in order to establish “net neutrality.”
Even among Internet entrepreneurial sites like Fiverr and Airbnb, some websites may possibility receive preferential treatment in the future in the form of faster traffic speeds. Sites like Amazon, Netflix, and YouTube may be asked to pay an extra fee in order to acquire the power to manage the higher traffic on their related e-commerce sites. What would this do to the millions of freelancing professionals on sites like Fiverr which may refuse to pay?
This sounds a lot like government regulation and taxation to many in the freelancing community. And once that can of worms is opened, where will it end? Shouldn’t the Internet be free and open for anyone to use? Or is this proposed legislation a way for the US government to simply sell the Internet to the highest bidder?
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