Union Leader Calls For Email Tax To Pay Off Deficit

Bob Crow, the leader of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) Trade Union, has proposed that the government should tax emails, rather than cutting public services, in order to reduce the record budget deficit.

Crow said that all emails should carry a levy of one pence (per email), and he also said the government should scrap the replacement for the UK’s nuclear deterrent, Trident.

The RMT General Secretary made his comments on a late night comedy show on Channel Four, last Thursday, when he was asked how he would go about protecting jobs, while still being able to cut the mammoth public deficit.

One Penny Tax

Despite the tongue-in-cheek nature of the show, it was clear from watching the interview with Bob Crow (31 minutes into the show), that he was being entirely serious about the one penny email tax.

During the interview with David Mitchell, one of the shows hosts, Crow made clear that he blamed the banking sector for the crisis, but admitted that the deficit does need to be tackled. Then he was asked how he proposed to tackle it.

“We should pay it back, and a tax of one pence on each email would help, it would certainly stop all the crap (spam) that we get,” said Crow.

“If groups of workers are under attack, and another group of workers are under attack, we believe we should coordinate the action and stand firm – propose a tax of 1 pence per email, and get rid of Trident,” he said.

“People have to ask whether they are prepared to pay one penny per email or see their meals on wheels service cut,” said Crow.

Previous Form

This is not the first time that Crow has called for the government to impose taxes on the technology sector. In December during an interview with the Guardian newspaper, Crow suggested the same one penny tax should be levied on SMS messages.

“I’m not like one of these left wing commentators who says: ‘Oh, don’t worry about the deficit.’ I’d put a 1 pence tax on every text message that’s sent in Britain, that would nearly wipe out half the deficit,” Crow told the newspaper

Of course, it is fairly clear that Crow’s suggestions do have a number of problems.

The Reality

Firstly, his suggestion of one penny on every SMS that is sent, would actually only have raised £968 million last year in the UK. This would hardly resolve the UK’s £150 billion budget deficit. There is no accurate record of how many emails are sent in a year.

Secondly, his suggestion that one penny is levied on every email message does not seem to take into account that spam accounts for roughly 90 percent of all emails sent, so how would the government be able to collect a tax on that?

And thirdly, and perhaps most tellingly, if the government were somehow to implement Crow’s tax idea, businesses and service providers would then simply move their email servers offshore to avoid it.

A similar point was made last year by IT service provider 2e2, who warned that the Government’s CRC laws may force companies to simply move their data centres offshore to avoid it.