As befits a magazine targeted at suckers at the public teat, Governing is less concerned about consumer concerns than with the impact on the tax base of untraceable transactions and the ability of corporations to set up shop in favorable jurisdictions and peddle their wares online. In Holland, for example, various goods such as CD disks ordered over the Internet are escaping that country's value-added tax. Governing warns that the trend is inescapable and the result will be higher personal taxes to replace lost corporate and sales taxes. We'll see about that. Whatever the politicians may decide on the red-headed stepchild of wallet stuffers, Euro bills and coins won't be available earlier than 2002, and before then consumers may opt for one or more electronic payment systems instead.
Some reports are better informed than others, but the gee-whiz quotient is still high as all hell.
The question is still whether electronic money will extend the reach of the tax man, or ease our escape from him. Picard wouldn't understand, but Harry Mudd would sympathize. The Media Spotlight is written by J.D. Tuccille , as a supplement to the Policy Spotlight . Spotlight Discussion Forum Free-Market. Net is a service of The Henry Hazlitt Foundation , in conjunction with its supporting members and partner organizations .