The House will vote today on a five-day continuing resolution (CR), which will extend the wrangling over potential riders on the omnibus spending bill that include on media ownership and network neutrality.

The Senate approved the stop-gap measure by voice vote Thursday (Dec. 10). The White House has said ideological riders, like the one defunding or limiting the Open Internet rules, are unacceptable and could lead to a government shutdown.

The government runs out of money today--Dec. 11--but no agreement on that omnibus bill has yet been struck, so the CR is needed to avoid a government shutdown. The CR extends to Dec. 16.

The media riders still in play include one that would grandfather joint sales agreements that would otherwise be treated as attributable ownership interests in a March 2014 FCC decision, block funding of new network neutrality rule implementation until legal challenges were resolved and not allow those new net neutrality rules to result in rate regulation.

Also on the docket in the House is a vote on a bipartisan trade bill, the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015 (H.R. 644), that includes a permanent moratorium on taxing Internet access service.

The House and Senate passed different versions of the trade bill, and have resolved those differences, in the process adding a provision making the Internet Tax Freedom Act (ITFA) permanent, rather than having to be periodically renewed.

The Senate is also expected to approve the conferenced bill early next week. (ITFA was to have sunset Dec. 11, but was extetended as part of the previous CR that is getting a five-day renewal Friday).

Michael Needham, CEO of Heritage Action, urged final passage.

“On very rare occasions genuine conservative policy victories emerge from a conference committee. A permanent ban on taxing Internet access is one such victory," he said. "The permanent ban also deprives proponents of an Internet sales tax from using it as leverage to achieve their unpopular and destructive policy. That is a double win for taxpayers. Heritage Action reserves the right to key vote against any effort to strip this important provision from the bill.”

That"destructive policy"reference is to those who were trying to link the permanent moratorium with the Marketplace Fairness Act, a bill that would apply a sales tax to online retailers.

Looks like the government won't be shutting down, at least before Dec. 11 and ISPs, and their customers, won't be subject to new taxes.

The House and Senate Wednesday (Sept. 30) passed a continuing resolution (CR) that keeps the government funded through that date. The bill did not include defunding Planned Parenthood. The President still has to sign the bill by midnight.

The CR did include extending the Internet Tax Freedom Act (ITFA) until Dec. 11, a cable source confirmed. That is the prohibition on state and local taxes on Internet access service except in the handful of states where such taxes were grandfathered when the moratorium, which has to be renewed periodically, passed in 1998.

Cable operators are pushing for a separate bill that would make the moratorium permanent.

ITFA would have also expired Sept. 30, after being renewed through that date as part of the last stop-gap government funding bill.

The Senate has released a version of a continuing resolution budget bill that would include an extension of the moratorium on Internet access taxes until Dec. 11.

The current moratorium, which was included in the first temporary spending bill passed last December, expires Sept. 30 unless a stop-gap extension is passed as part of the spending bill or independently.

Some Republicans have threatened to block passage of spending bills over funding of Planned Parenthood.

The Internet Tax Freedom Act expires periodically unless renewed. A bill that would make the moratorium permanent passed the House (http://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/washington/house-passes-permanent-...) over the objections of mayors, governors and telecom regulators and to the cheers of ISPs, but has not passed the Senate.

A hold-up for the permanent moratorium bill is that some in the Senate want it packaged with the Marketplace Fairness Act, which would give states and localities the ability to tax online sales.

The House June 9 is scheduled once again to tee up a bill that would make permanent the Internet Tax Freedom Act (ITFA).

In January, a bipartisan group of House members reintroduced the bill. ITFA prevents state and local taxes on Internet access in all but a handful of grandfathered jurisdictions.

ITFA, which expires unless reauthorized, has been extended five times since 1998, most recently through September 2015, when the moratorium was extended last December as part of a must-pass appropriations bill. http://www.multichannel.com/news/content/itfa-renewed-through-september/....

The House has the bill in July 2014, but it got hung up in the Senate.

Cash-strapped states and local governments are always looking for new revenue sources, but the bill would make sure that would not include taxes on access to the Internet. That would make sense given that the government has made a priority of promoting Internet access and adoption and keeping the cost down.

The bill is spearheaded by Reps Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.)--ranking member of the Communications Subcommittee--and Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), cochairs of the Congressional Internet Caucus. Also sponsoring the bill are Reps Steve Chabot (R-Ohio), Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) and Tom Marino (R-Pa.)

Not surprisingly, ISPs have been pushing for passage of the permanent moratorium.

Free Press told the FCC Sunday (Dec. 14) that renewal of the Internet Tax Freedom Act (ITFA) should put to rest cable arguments that the reclassification of Internet access under Title II could mean a new tax hit for companies and consumers. Cable ops are sticking with their assertion.

The moratorium on Internet access service taxes in all but a handful of states passed as part of the omnibus appropriations bill and extends that moratorium at least through September of next year.

"This extension erases any concern that reclassifying Internet-access services under Title II of the Communications Act could lead to a new tax burden on consumers," Free Press told the FCC in a letter pointing out the holes Free Press sees in that tax argument, which was offered up by the Progressive Policy Institute, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, and the American Consumer Institute (ACI), among others.

"Internet Service Providers currently pay taxes, as do many other businesses. Telecommunications services and public utility services also pay taxes, but generally higher rates. The Internet Tax Freedom Act does not change any of that," said ACI President Steve Pociask.  

"As a result, reclassifying broadband to a Title II regulation opens ISPs to higher rates of state taxes that are only applicable to public utility and regulated telecommunications services. These taxes include gross receipts taxes and property taxes, which are generally much higher for public utilities, compared to property taxes on other business.

"There should be no confusion that reclassifying will subject ISPs to increased property and gross receipts taxes," he said.

“The Free Press statement that 'Title II will not create any new taxes for broadband user' is blatantly false and contradicts Free Press’ previous acknowledgement that consumers could bear the burden of new USF fees if broadband is reclassified as a telecommunications service,” said NCTA in a statement. “Section 254(d) compels all telecommunications carriers to contribute to the Universal Service Fund. While the Commission could forbear from that obligation – a result we would fully support – that is the type of speculative regulatory action that Free Press discounts entirely. 

“As to state and local taxes and fees, we agree that ITFA should protect ISPs and their customers from many of these taxes and fees, at least through September 2015. But given past experience with state and local tax authorities, we have every reason to believe that an FCC decision to reclassify broadband as a telecommunications service will lead these authorities to revisit their treatment of these services and to explore ways of circumventing ITFA’s protections. If Free Press is really interested in hoaxes, perhaps it should look no further than its ongoing tirades against ISP-created fast lanes that do not exist.”

Internet access providers are calling on the lame duck Congress to hurry up and extend the Internet Tax Freedom Act before the current law expires Dec. 11. National Cable & Telecommunications Association President Michael Powell said not to do so would be a "tragic mistake." They also want to make it permanent.

According to the Internet Tax Freedom Act Coalition, that came in a letter signed by the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, the American Cable Association, COMPTEL, CTIA, and USTelecom, and others representing ISPs serving 275 million consumers.

A temporary ban on Internet access taxes has been regularly renewed since it was first adopted in 1998, but the bill would make that ban permanent.

The House passed a bill in July. The expiration date on the ISP tax moratorium had been Nov. 1, but that was pushed to Dec. 11 to give the Senate more time to follow suit.

"we respectfully request you to take action immediately to protect all Americans from new regressive state and local taxation of Internet access and multiple and discriminatory taxation of Internet commerce," the ISPs said in a letter to house and Senate leadership. "If Congress fails to act soon, millions of broadband, cable and wireless consumers will be at risk for new taxes in thousands of state and local jurisdictions. Now is the time to provide all Americans with certainty that their Internet access will never be subject to tax."

“Keeping Internet access free from state and local taxes has been a fundamental principle since the Internet was introduced to American consumers,” said Powell in a statement accompanying the announcement of the letter. “Reversing this course which has sparked such tremendous economic growth and numerous other benefits would be a tragic mistake. We urge the Congress to quickly take up and pass this important, bipartisan legislation so that American consumers and businesses will continue to be protected from any additional taxes and fees that could raise the price of Internet access and slow the rapid adoption of broadband services.”

The bill has bipartisan, though not universal, support, including from the cochairs of the Congressional Internet Caucus-- ranking House Communications Subcommittee member Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), House Judiciary Committee chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), Senate Judiciary chair Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Commerce Committee ranking member Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.).

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/washington/internet-tax-freedom-ac...

Passage of the House version came on a voice vote without the representatives having to record their votes. But that easy passage belied some of the strong opposition to the bill in floor speeches before the vote, particularly from representatives of grandfathered states. Arguments for the permanent moratorium included that it was saving consumers from discriminatory taxes that could disproportionately affect the poor and discourage broadband use. Arguments against included that it was preempting states' rights to determine the best way to raise money and to "fill the potholes and clean the streets."