No EU text and email tax

Alain Lamassoure, the French MEP at the centre of recent reports about a potential EU-wide tax on text messages and emails, today issued a statement distancing himself from the controversial proposals.

Reports earlier this week claimed Lamassoure was behind an EU working group investigating the possibility of taxing emails and SMS texts.

But Lamassoure now says that while he is personally interested in the possibility of taxing new technologies he will not put forward any such proposals to the EU committee investigating new means of funding the EU.

In a statement sent to IT Week's sister site vnunet.com, Lamassoure wrote that the proposals were "not on the table for our European work, and, for my part, I have no intention of putting them on the table".

He added that any changes to the way the EU is currently funded would require the agreement of all member governments.

However, Lamassoure did suggest that a debate about taxes and new technologies may be worthwhile. "Several countries have implemented a levy on air transport or road freight while others are more interested in CO2 emissions trading," he wrote. "Can some of the hundreds of new services arising from the technology and communication revolution participate? And in what way?"

A spokeswoman for Lamassoure's office told IT Week this personal opinion had been misinterpreted as an official proposal. "It was a point put forward in a general discussion," she said. "Alain said we have to think about new means [of taxation] as there are new technologies producing new benefits. [But] there is nothing put forward formally [and] he knows that it is not technically possible [to tax emails and texts]."