wb8foz@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (David Lesher) (10/07/90)
I just got my initial bill for my WD-40 Sprint card use. I've been avoiding using it until the dust settled. It looks like I did the right thing; this bill has my $7.80 credit on it. It also lists the CO by name that I placed the call from; something MCI cannot seem to do. BUT! On my one call of $1.24 , Sprint charged me $.19 in federal excise tax. They also charged me $0.14 in FL gross receipts tax, and $0.40 state sales tax. Hmmmmm. Now, I happen to also have an MCI Expressphone bill in front of me. It too has a two minute call to the 216 as the sole entry. They charged me $.02 in federal tax, and $.01 state and local. (Their call cost me only $0.72 because of Around Town) They did NOT charge me sales tax. These rates jibe with the MCI/Southern Bill bill for my 10222 service. I called Sprint, and the CSR got a little flustered at the large dollar amounts involved ;_}. She promised to check into it, and I'll call again tomorrow. But my big question is: Should I be charged FL state sales tax? To expand the question: how do carriers handle people whose billing addresses are != service addresses? I have a second Expressphone account with a 301 (MD) number (long gone, but the account is still good) that I use for calls while in the District area. What tax should I be charged on IT? If it is billing state dependent, what state should I get my statement mailed to for lowest taxes? (I feel a litle sorry for the billing software writers. If you include a zillion different city/county/state tax rates, how do you EVER get the ruleset correct? Is it the COBOL version of sendmail.cf ;-?) wb8foz@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (305) 255-RTFM