Business
Taxes on Information Technologies Threatening Economic Growth
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Georgi Kantchev, THE NEW YORK TIMES
(The New York Times)—Governments around the world, particularly in emerging markets, are raising taxes on information technologies, threatening to impede economic growth and slow consumers’ adoption of smartphones and broadband Internet access, a report to be released on Monday warns.
At least 31 countries, most of which are in the developing world, are imposing the damaging high taxes on top of other sales or value-added taxes, according to the report by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a nonpartisan research group in Washington.
Underscoring the report’s timeliness, thousands of Hungarians in Budapest on Sunday protested a new tax on Internet usage proposed by the government.
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