Senate Scales Back Broadband Tax Breaks - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com

Verizon isn’t going to get what could have been a $1.6 billion tax break, under a new version of the stimulus plan being introduced Thursday night. The change is being made to provisions meant to encourage the deployment of high-speed Internet service that had been written by Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, the West Virginia Democrat who is the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee.

One reading of somewhat ambiguous language in the first version of the Senate bill would have given a 20 percent tax credit to any investment in “next-generation broadband” service — defined as offering download speeds at least 100 megabits per second — to any home. Verizon is planning to bring its FiOS service to six million homes over the next two years and could offer service at that speed. The first bill also offered credits for slower speeds: 20 percent for unserved areas and a 10 percent credit for rural and underserved areas, which it mainly defined as low-income neighborhoods.

Senate Scales Back Broadband Tax Breaks - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com