Posted by
Larry Bristow on Saturday, November 29, 2008 6:58:44 AM
The South American country of Guyana plans to close hundreds
of Internet cafes that it accuses of bypassing the telephone company
system to offer cheap international calls.
The
Revenue Authority accuses the cafes of tax evasion because they do not
charge sales tax or other fees for calls made through Internet-based
phone services like Skype, Vonage and Packet8.
The
tax agency says cafes are multiplying so fast that "their collective
impact on the national revenue is too significant to
ignore."
It says callers who use phone companies
Digicel and the Guyana Telephone & Telegraph Co. account for 16
percent of the country's sales tax revenues.