A “proposed bill” introduced in the Connecticut General Assembly (No. 5645) proposes the establishment of a tax on “social media provider companies,” which would be measured by “apportioned annual gross revenue derived from social media advertising services” in Connecticut. The proposed bill calls for the revenue from such tax to be partially dedicated to funding online bullying prevention efforts, training and research to address social isolation, and suicide prevention.
The legislation lacks formal statutory language because in Connecticut, legislators may introduce a proposed bill as a short statement in non-statutory language. A proposed bill is submitted to the relevant committee that has responsibility for the proposal’s subject matter (in this case, the Joint Committee on Finance, Revenue and Bonding), which may (or may not) take the concept in the proposed bill and draft it into formal statutory language.