Economics: The Basics 1st Edition by Mike Mandel

Exercise 6

Suppose the government decided to tax e-mail messages, text messages, and instant messages-say, at 5 cents per message. The money would be used to cut the income tax and sales tax on other goods and services.
a) How many e-mail messages, text messages, and instant messages do you send each day? If you didn't change the number of messages you send, how much tax would you have to pay?
b) Would a tax of 5 cents per message reduce your use of messaging?
c) What effect do you think a tax on messages would have on the amount of spam sent on the Internet? Is this a desirable outcome?