The House payroll tax extension bill is larded with rightwing ideological addenda and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski has denounced a provision that would “tie the agency’s hands in ways that could be counterproductive, reducing economic value and hindering innovation and investment.” [H]e warned that provisions limiting the FCC’s ability to designate [...]
Amazon has come out strongly for a federal law allowing states to require online retailers to collect sales taxes, as long as all web retailers are covered by the tax. Ten U.S. Senators have introduced the bill, including Republicans Michael Enzi (R., Wyo.) and Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.): Thanks to modern technology, “widespread collection no [...]
The Communications Workers of America is in a drawn out contract fight with Verizon and is highlighting the fact that not only is the company trying to ripoff its employees, it’s also ripping off the taxpayers. A report by Citizens for Tax Justice early this month had highlighted top corporate tax avoiders and Verizon was [...]
The Natural Resources Defense Council estimates that improvements in energy efficiency could save $700 billion in cost savings in the U.S. alone– and yes, that’s billion with a “b”. But getting consumers to adopt the smart grid technology and techniques to achieve those savings is the real challenge, so… Facebook, the Natural Resources Defense Council [...]
Did you know that YouTube is owned by a Netherlands’ corporation? No? Well the IRS doesn’t think so either, apparently, since Bloomberg News is reporting that the IRS is investigating Google for potentially illegal shifting of profits overseas to evade U.S. taxes by pretending its revenue producing assets are owned by overseas subsidiaries: Google, owner [...]
Steve Jobs is rightly hailed for the software design innovations of Apple products, but the citing of his corporate leadership as epitomizing the modern economy may also reflect some unfortunate truths as well. Apple has the highest market capitalization of any company on Wall Street, yet it only employs 50,000 employees worldwide—a rounding error in [...]
There’s been a lot of debate about redirecting the current Universal Service Fund which pays for universal telephone service to also help fund expansion of broadband Internet to help achieve universal Internet access. Most people agree this is a good idea. The only problem is that the current industry proposal, the so-called ABC Plan, accomplishes [...]
FCC chairman Julius Genachowski made a major speech on Jobs and The Broadband Economy” at the offices of Living Social, touting the company and similar Internet companies as a key to jobs in the broadband economy. He cited “Facebook. Twitter. iPhones. Tablets. App stores. Android. The Kindle. The cloud” as new innovations in the last [...]
The E-Verify system for verifying legal immigration status is notoriously unreliable, which has worried immigrant and civil rights activists around the country. But business and privacy advocates have also spoken out against proposed legislation that would make the E-Verify system mandatory for all employers: The Legal Workforce Act from Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) would make [...]
