TELECOM Moderator <telecom@eecs.nwu.edu> (05/25/90)
The {Los Angeles Times} reports that telephone customers in Los
Angeles and throughout the state will pay an increased tax of 3.4% on
their long-distance calls within California, effective July 1, to help
pay for basic telephone service for low-income households.
PT peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) (05/25/90)
In article <8242@accuvax.nwu.edu> telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator) writes: > an increased tax of 3.4% on their long-distance calls within California,... > to help pay for basic telephone service for low-income households. Isn't this supposed to be included in your phone bill anyway? Universal service, and all that stuff. Peter da Silva. +1 713 274 5180. <peter@ficc.ferranti.com> <peter@sugar.hackercorp.com> [Moderator's Note: Well, you would think so. I guess the California legislature disagrees. PT]
rmadison@euler.berkeley.edu (Linc Madison) (05/28/90)
In article <8242@accuvax.nwu.edu> Patrick writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 383, Message 8 of 9 >The {Los Angeles Times} reports that telephone customers in Los >Angeles and throughout the state will pay an increased tax of 3.4% on >their long-distance calls within California, effective July 1, to help >pay for basic telephone service for low-income households. As I understand it, the flat fee each subscriber paid to underwrite Universal Lifeline service is switching to a percentage tax. I'm a little puzzled, though, 'cause I thought they already did this -- for which reason I now see blurbs in my MCI and Sprint bills. (Maybe that one was the TDD tax or the 911 tax or one of the others.) That touches on another issue that I was about to write about, though: Sprint has recently (beginning of the year?) decided to apply the city of Berkeley's local utility tax to *all* of my long-distance calls instead of only the in-state calls. I find this rather curious since it's illegal for the city of Berkeley to tax out-of-state calls. Also, neither MCI (on an MCI Card with a Berkeley billing address) nor AT&T (on 10288 calls from my home number) bills city utility tax on out-of state calls. I called Sprint and got a considerable run-around (including being told to call back to a number in Burlingame -- long-distance!) and then was told, "yes, we applied the 6.5% city utility tax to all of your calls." Yes, I noticed that. That doesn't answer my question as to what gives them the (mistaken) impression it's legal. This tax, by the way, is general revenue for the city. Thank you, Prop's 4 and 13! Linc Madison = rmadison@euler.berkeley.edu