Quote :

"Century-old phone tax for war is defeated Bloomberg News Published May 26, 2006 WASHINGTON -- More than a century after the Spanish-American War, phone companies have succeeded in getting rid of the tax created to pay for it. Treasury Secretary John Snow announced Thursday that the government is "conceding the issue" over the 108-year-old U.S. excise tax on long-distance calls and will refund about $13 billion in taxes paid for the past three years. In past years five appeals courts have said the tax is illegal, and Republican lawmakers in Congress sought to abolish it. At issue was whether a 1965 version of the law, first enacted in 1898 to fund the war with Spain, permitted the government to tax long-distance calls based on elapsed time, distance, or both. In 2005 the Internal Revenue Serivce insisted both types of calls were taxable. The courts ruled the tax did not apply to calls billed in time increments or those covered by a flat-rate plan, as most calls currently are. The driving force behind the push for abolition of the tax came from successful legal challenges by corporate phone-service customers such as Itasca-based OfficeMax Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. The 3 percent excise tax, which carriers have been required to collect from their clients and remit to the government, would generate $67 billion in government revenue over the next 10 years, according to estimates by the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. Snow said the tax will end on July 31. Most of the refunds will be given between January and April 2007 when people file their 2006 tax returns, he said."

So it only took a century to get rid of a tax. Congress is losing its touch.

5/26/2006 10:39:05 AM

not entirely sure it had a touch to lose

5/26/2006 10:41:35 AM

so does that mean our phone bills will be a little lower from July 31st and beyond or will we get like a $5 credit on our taxes?

5/26/2006 10:46:35 AM

I severely doubt it

5/26/2006 10:47:59 AM

this is pretty sweet for us. We have a couple of call centers and we do a ton of telephony stuff. And its all long distance.

5/26/2006 10:53:37 AM

good for you, Dilbert

5/26/2006 11:00:34 AM

outsourcing via offshoring just got a tad bit cheaper

5/26/2006 11:19:28 AM

Quote :

"so does that mean our phone bills will be a little lower from July 31st and beyond or will we get like a $5 credit on our taxes?"

It probably means that the phone companies will continue to charge what they charge and just pocket the difference.

5/26/2006 11:32:14 AM

5/26/2006 11:44:09 AM

it means absolute shit if you make all your calls with a cell phone.

5/26/2006 1:30:10 PM

well i have a houseline too but i dont really care that much if my phone bill drops from $45/month to $44/month

5/26/2006 1:32:06 PM

so we've been paying taxes on spanish-american war era telephones.



man, i want my money back.



[Edited on May 26, 2006 at 6:51 PM. Reason : http://runeberg.org/teleapp/0014.html]

5/26/2006 6:50:35 PM

eh

i guess it's good any time a tax goes away



your money is taxed when you earn it, taxed again when you spend it, taxed if you invest instead of spending (and then AGAIN when you eventually spend it), and taxed when you die. it's ridiculous to have the same money taxed so many times, in such complicated ways, and at such ridiculous levels.

5/26/2006 6:59:46 PM

^Really. You know the scam so many movies are based on where if you just skim a tenth of a penny from all the transactions of one bank you end up with hundreds of thousands of dollars in short order. Well the government skims anywhere from 3-30% of every business and individual transaction and still can't get enough.

It makes me wonder... they tax on income, spending, saving, estates, etc., etc. I wonder how much of each dollar earned actually goes to taxes when it is all said and done. I'm guessing 50% or above.

[Edited on May 27, 2006 at 1:37 PM. Reason : -]

5/27/2006 1:36:45 PM

prepare for your long distance rates to increase

oh i dunno

about 3%

5/27/2006 1:58:41 PM

WOW ANOTHER EARTHDOGG THREAD BITCHING ABOUT TAXES

5/27/2006 8:20:56 PM

well, if you're gonna bitch, taxes are one of the most deserving subjects.

5/27/2006 9:52:06 PM

says the guy who flies the 18 million dollar jet

5/28/2006 10:56:36 AM

haha, i think they're closer to double that...

but i--generally speaking--don't have a problem with military spending.

there are plenty of other things that can be trimmed in the budget, though, and regardless of that, I HATE the current format of our tax system. it's a total clusterfuck, and it screws you for making money.

5/28/2006 7:28:36 PM

we really need more thread about it, tho

5/28/2006 7:43:21 PM

Military sepnding is actually something the congress should be doing. What I find aggravating about this particular tax is that, at the end, it actually wasn't the congress trying to keep it, but the IRS/Treasury dept. Even after the congress ordered them to stop collecting it. The IRS had a tough time releasing its death-grip on collecting this tax.

5/28/2006 11:12:52 PM