Are Federal Broadband Grants Taxable?
Casey Lide of Keller & Heckman recently wrote a blog post warning that federal grant funding might be considered taxable income by the IRS.
Casey Lide of Keller & Heckman recently wrote a blog post warning that federal grant funding might be considered taxable income by the IRS.
Congress is finally demanding action on the Universal Service Fund.
Building on previous initiatives, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act represents a potentially significant improvement over previous efforts to help low-income families get online. But as always, much will depend on how the Federal Communications Commission carries out its new congressional mandate. The Affordable Connectivity Program will provide $30/month in assistance on an ongoing basis, plus equipment subsidies. There is much to like about the new Affordable Connectivity Program.
One way to decrease the importance of nomination fights is to reduce the power of agencies by shifting the locus of legislative decision-making back where it belongs — in Congress. Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution — the document’s very first substantive provision — establishes that “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States.” Today, most policy decisions are made not on Capi
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act includes $42.45 billion in funding for broadband networks, which, if passed, would reflect the government’s most significant commitment to date to addressing America’s broadband availability gap. While I applaud making states the locus of fund distribution, I question the choice of National Telecommunications and Information Administration rather than the Federal Communications Commission as the locus of oversight.
The Federal Communications Commission and the Biden administration have taken significant steps to fill the broadband gap in the United States, but bridging the divide is not easy. Figuring out where the broadband gaps are is no small task, and current mapping efforts fall short by overstating the amount of broadband in given locations—a product of relying on industry-reported data which is inherently incomplete.
President Joe Biden’s American Jobs Plan prioritizes “building ‘future proof’ broadband infrastructure in unserved and underserved areas so that we finally reach 100 percent high-speed broadband coverage.” Many considered this an imperative to spend the funds on fiber-to-the-home connections. Yet is fiber—and more precisely, fiber-optic "last mile" connections into residences—really future proof? As the amount of devices and data generated have multiplied, fixed connections to them have diminished.
As America gears up for President Joe Biden’s (trimmed down) $65 billion plan to connect every American to affordable high-speed internet, almost inevitably the focus turns to rolling out infrastructure — notably terrestrial fiber — into unserved (or underserved), predominantly rural communities. Yet the focus on building more infrastructure glosses over the reality that the number of urban households without an internet connection — despite some of the world’s best infrastructure passing their doors — exceeds the number of unconnected rural households by a ratio of nearly three to one (13.
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