FCC Official Warns Obama-Backed Net Neutrality Plan Would Bring 'Immediate' Internet Tax

Internet users would be forced to pay a new federal tax on their monthly bills if the government approves regulations recently endorsed by President Obama, a member of the Federal Communications Commission predicts.

Commissioner Mike O’Reilly addressed what’s known as “net neutrality” at a Washington seminar on Friday. He spoke after Obama backed stricter rules by calling for preventing service providers from charging more for speedier service and for regulating them like telecommunications companies under a decades-old law.

That law requires telecommunications companies to pay into the FCC’s “Universal Service Fund” — and would likely require the same of Internet companies. But O’Reilly says history clearly shows that the fees would quickly be “passed off” to customers, just like they are now on monthly phone bills.

“Consumers of these services would face an immediate increase in their Internet bills,” O’Reilly said Friday during the seminar held by the non-partisan Free State Foundation. “Let’s accept a truism: Consumers pay [the fund], not companies.”

O’Reilly, a Republican on the five-member commission, also quoted scholar and net neutrality guru Tim Wu in saying, “Ultimately, consumers always pay for everything, no matter what we say otherwise.”

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