Dear Otus,
I'm confused as to when this new Internet tax for posting photos of your pets and kids is supposed to kick in. I understand the need for the tax, I just want to make sure we don't overdo it. I post 10 or 12 photos of my grandkids and their kittens every day (sample enclosed).
-- Anna Maas, North Little Rock
Dear Anna,
It was wholly a pleasure to hear from you. And congratulations on your adorable grandkids and their adorable kittens. I'm sure if we were Facebook friends I'd have to start a special folder to save them all.
First of all, let's get the nomenclature correct. The government wants to stress that the SPKFF (Selfie, Pet, Kids and Food Fee) is not a tax. It's a fee. Just ask any politician -- there's an important difference.
The Supreme Court has described a tax as an "enforced contribution to provide for the support of government." However, a fee charged by a state or political subdivision for a service rendered or convenience provided is a permissible fee and not a tax.
But to answer your question, the SPKFF fee will take effect at the beginning of Fiscal Year 2015, which is this coming Oct. 1. The Senate Appropriations Committee is planning a wide range of bills to present to the House based on the expected revenue to be generated by the fee.
The Treasury Department estimates the expected monetary impact for the first year: $118 billion. Most of the money collected will go toward infrastructure and reducing the estimated $17.3 trillion national debt.
That $118 billion represents pictures of a lot of puppies and kittens and a lot of goofy kiddies doing goofy kid stuff. But with a little prudent forethought, the fee burden shouldn't be all that heavy on any one individual.
For those contrarian types who believe everything should be free, there's this to consider. At last count, the Internet was almost full. I have trouble understanding bandwidth and The Cloud, web interfaces, file transfer protocol and the like, but I do understand it when I'm told something is almost full.
The government's Internet Accounting Office (IAO) reported at the end of the last quarter that the average Internet service provider (ISP) disclosed their storage capability was at 88 percent. Of that, 96 percent was photos of puppies, kittens, food being consumed at restaurants, kids doing cute things and selfies (self-taken photographs) made at mundane events.
Every day more than 200 million photos are uploaded to Facebook in the United States alone. And that doesn't count the videos of kittens playing with string or dogs chasing their tails.
Twitter is another outfit approaching capacity at 90 percent. Other third-party websites (TPW) reporting the squeeze include SnapFish, Flickr, YouTube, Google Drive, Dropbox, ImageShack, Photobucket, Photobooth, FileFront, UpLoad, JustKatz and SelfieServe.
It was a revenue source ripe for monetizing. The only other option was to create an Internet sales tax and nobody wants that.
If you don't like it, don't blame the other political party. The new SPKFF fee had almost universal bilateral support last fall in Congress. You just need to take a moment to ponder whether America really needs to see your photo of that fried pie at Benny Bob's Barbecue in Blytheville or the Instagram of your terrier barking at that Rottweiler at the dog park.
The government has begun a $400 million advertising campaign to alert citizens of the pending fee implementation. Look for them to be interspersed on local television in between ads for Rep. Tom Cotton's Senate campaign.
Here's the basic fee breakdown per uploaded photo under the parameters of using an sRGB JPG file that's 851 pixels wide, 315 pixels tall and takes up less than 100 kilobytes of memory.
(Note: You can still upload multiple images directly to your timeline, but the fees will be computed on an individual photo basis.)
Selfies: Solitary selfies are 3 cents each. For group selfie shots, add an additional 2 cents per person until the 10-cent limit is reached.
Pets: The fee is 1 cent per cat and 2 cents per dog. Dogs are more expensive because they take up more bandwidth.
Kids: The base SPKFF fee is 2 cents per child regardless of size or age. In Anna's accompanying photograph, the total fee for two children and two cats would be 6 cents. The limit (as with group selfies) is 10 cents, so if you post a photo of your grandkid's junior soccer team of 18 members, it would still cost only 10 cents.
Food: Photos of entrees (home or restaurant) are 2 cents; desserts and appetizers are 1 cent each.
Until next time, Kalaka reminds you that taking photos of your kids holding their pets while eating doesn't really save money.
Disclaimer
Fayetteville-born Otus the Head Cat's award-winning column of humorous fabrication appears every Saturday. Email: [email protected]
HomeStyle on 05/10/2014