Internet Taxes / Pornography - Proposal to Tax Internet Porn to Finance a Trust Fund to Protect Children and Impose "Age Verification" Standards

Sen. Mary Landrieu introduced a bill to impose a 25% tax on internet porn to finance a program to protect children from on-line pornography. Individuals and entities who are paid for pornographic content would be responsible for collecting the tax. However, it is unclear from the text whether service providers would be within this definition. Beyond creating an internet tax "wedge," the bill creates a cascading list of priorities that would receive funds from the tax. The first priority is enforcement and "development of technology that would facilitate enforcement of this Act." As can be expected, this aspect of the bill has again raised to prospect of content filtering. The bill would also require operators of adult sites to create positive measures that would verify age - rather than rely on self verification, as some sites do now, and require the FTC, in conjunction with the Department of Justice, to maintain a list of sites that do not require positive verification. Washington Post Article Bill text