United States Government Publishing Office publisher pbl distributor dst United States Government Accountability Office author aut Government Organization text government publication eng GAOREPORTS Legislative Agency Publications gao legislative 2010-08-12 U.S. Government Printing Office 2006-01-23 monographic deposited born digital 55 p. GA 1.13:GAO-06-273 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-GAO-06-273 P0b002ee18037df33 f:d06273 DGPO 2010-08-12 2011-03-28 GAOREPORTS-GAO-06-273 machine generated eng fdlp REPORT GAOREPORTS-GAO-06-273 GAO-06-273 Federal law Internet Municipal taxes Policy evaluation State taxes Tax administration Tax law Other Written Product A45508 According to one report, at the end of 2004, some 70 million U.S. adults logged on to access the Internet during a typical day. As public use of the Internet grew from the mid-1990s onward, Internet access became a potential target for state and local taxation. In 1998, Congress imposed a moratorium temporarily preventing state and local governments from imposing new taxes on Internet access. Existing state and local taxes were grandfathered. In amending the moratorium in 2004, Congress required GAO to study its impact on state and local government revenues. This report's objectives are to determine the scope of the moratorium and its impact, if any, on state and local revenues. For this report, GAO reviewed the moratorium's language, its legislative history, and associated legal issues; examined studies of revenue impact; interviewed people knowledgeable about access services; and collected information about eight case study states not intended to be representative of other states. GAO chose the states considering such factors as whether they had taxes grandfathered for different forms of access services and covered different urban and rural parts of the country. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-GAO-06-273/html/GAOREPORTS-GAO-06-273.htm https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-GAO-06-273/pdf/GAOREPORTS-GAO-06-273.pdf GAO-06-273 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-GAO-06-273 Other Written Product GAO-06-273; Internet Access Tax Moratorium: Revenue Impacts Will Vary by State; Federal law Internet Municipal taxes Policy evaluation State taxes Tax administration Tax law