Baltimore kills proposal to tax cable TV

Maybe this is why Verizon doesn't want to take its FiOS TV service to Baltimore. A city councilman has shelved a bill that would tax cable television after the city's lawyer said it would probably violate federal law. Councilman James Kraft had proposed levying $4 a month on cable service as a way to raise about $10 million in revenue. While unlikely that Comcast would have had to pay the tax--it would have passed the bill onto its subscribers--it's still probably not a good idea to add four bucks to a monthly cable bill when trying to attract competition to the city.

In lieu of the cable tax, a bottle tax, now spinning in bureaucratic limbo, could be revived. That tax, of course, is opposed by beverage distributors and retailers, who claim it would send residents outside the city for their glass-enclosed beverages.

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