Taxing SMS?

Alain Lamassoure, a senior centre-right French MEP, has suggested that the EU levy a tax on SMS and email messages in a debate on the union's future financing. Mr Lamassoure made his suggestion on Monday (8 May) in a financial working group as part of a joint European Parliament and national parliament conference on the future of Europe in Brussels. He told EUobserver "The economic value of today's globalisation lies in information through transactions in the form of international communication. Why don't we levy taxes on this value, for instance SMS messages?""A small tax on an SMS from Paris to another French city could be allocated to the French government, but taxes on emails or SMS messages from Paris to Rome could be dedicated to the EU budget," he said. "In France an SMS costs 15 cents. We could tax it by 1.5 cents, or less," the MEP added. For email, the rate could be as little as €0.00001. "This is peanuts, but given the billions of transactions every day, this could still raise an immense income." The EU has started a re-think of its financing after the bitter talks on the 2007-2013 budget which ended in a hard-fought agreement in December.