We Pay Gasoline Tax to Keep Up the US Highway Infrastructure–Why Not Tax the Data Selling Companies and Banks to Keep Up the US Government IT Infrastructure? A “Buffett Tax” Alternative

It’s time for another one of these posts since the Buffett Law on taxes is sinking or is sunk. If you have followed any of the news in the last few years about the SEC (Madoff) and other government departments needing IT infrastructure updates, let’s face it, we need a tax for that.

Corporations, Banks, High Frequency Traders, Social Networks, etc. all make Billions, that’s with a big “B” selling data they mine and most of the time get it for free. States already license data miners but now their costs are going up as they have to install software to keep some of the “bots” out as they have tremendously grown in numbers and who pays for that? Taxes are supposed to but they are all running short. This was discussed before under Chapter 17 of “The Attack of the Killer Algorithms”. They have teeth and make money and this is what you can’t see, touch or talk to running on servers 24/7 behind the scenes.

Start Licensing and Taxing the Data Sellers of the Internet Making Billions of Profit Dollars Mining “Free Taxpayer Data”–Attack of the Killer Algorithms Chapter 17 - “Occupy Algorithms”– Help Stop Inequality in the US

I actually started out calling it the “Alternative Millionaires Tax a while back. Not too long ago I saw somewhere that Google was offering a “tiny” bit of money for those to agree to let them use their data. I can’t remember where but it was out there.

The Alternative Millionaire’s Tax–License and Tax Big Corporations Who Mine and Sell Taxpayer Data They Get for Free From the Internet-Phase One to Restore Middle Class With Transparency, Disclosure and Money

CoreLogic, one of the data miners for credit information has formed a partnership with FICO who is already in the process of selling algorithms with mismatched data which connects public information about you and combines it with your credit score to tell if you as a medical patient will take your prescriptions. Somebody needs to start calling some of these folks on “mis matched data” that discriminates as now we have “Discrimination by the Algorithm” and it’s showing in more places all the time. Others actually say it a lot better than I do, video below.

You Are the Product–Privacy Anonymity and Net Neutrality On the Internet - Excellent Stanford University Lecture (Video)

So the next time you are out there buying that tire to keep your car rolling, and pay a federal excise tax, give this some thought on the millions and billions being made by corporate US today from the “free taxpayer data” they mind and scrape for free and all the money they make off the backs of taxpayers, and this should be a way of corporations giving some of it back and would add some real transparency as we don’t know what all they are selling and to who?

Walgreens said in their 2010 SEC statement that they made short of $800 million, just from selling data, so one has to wonder if filling prescriptions is a side business to collect that data and how much profit would they show without this source of income? It’s large enough to be taxed and for them to have a license to mine and sell data. So far I have not had anyone “not” like this idea and separate it from Income Tax and require quarterly payments and an updated license every quarter so we know all are compliant. Here’s a little hindsight or foresight, a post I made back in August of 2009 and we need this now with the amount of “flawed data” and software out there.

“Department of Algorithms – Do We Need One of These to Regulate Upcoming Laws?

As consumers we have become data chasers to fix everything that has been put in data files that for the most part we had nothing to do with, unless you give it all away on Facebook and other social networks.

Attack of the Killer Algorithms Part 6–Discrimination With Consumer Credit-Same As Health Insurance Wanting Consumers to Reconstruct Records From Many Years Past As Middle Class Turns Into Data Chasers-Days of Taking Risks to Get Ahead Will Be Limited For Most…Occupy Algorithms

So again, where’s the tax in the US to keep up the IT Infrastructure, I don’t think there is one and we certainly could use it as big business runs over government all day long and we as consumers suffer with the Attacks of the Killer Algorithms as there’s no system and balance to protect us as the government is outdone over and over in most areas, with the exception of the military for the most part.

When folks get out of the military we hear one story after another though too and how they are not getting their proper benefits either and join the rank and file of the rest of us not protected by an adequate IT Infrastructure. The SEC and the FDA come to mind as 2 departments that could really use the support with IT infrastructure and they are 2 agencies that are supposed to help and protect consumers.

So again where is this IT Infrastructure tax? We can certainly use one as without it inequality will continue to thrive as big business continues to reign without much regulation. This is an area where big business benefits and the cost should be reflected from that side of the fence and not more tossed upon the consumer. Consumers also need a federal disclosure page in the name of transparency so we can see who sells what kind of data to who, as right now we are all at the mercy of the crafty written legal privacy statements on websites that are very difficult to interpret for the most part and confuse all and that may be the plan so as not to give out too much information as to what is really happening on servers operating 24/7 making life impacting decisions about all of us. Our lawmakers seem to be out of touch with all of what goes on behind the scenes as well.