Cell Phone Tax

[dimetime]

Local goverments are now seeking new tax revenues because of a sour economy. This has caused them to eye the cell phone bills of residents.
Certain members of congress wish to block this from happening, and this of couse has caused a debate in Washington over defederalism, fairness and tax policy.
The Cell Tax Fairness Act which was introduced by Rep. Zoe Lofgren in April.This Cell Tax Fairness Act imposes a 5 year moratoruim on what is described in the bill as new discriminatory tax on wireless providers and services. Both supporters and foes have faced the House of Judiciary Committees subcommittee on administrative and commercial law.
Mobile devices and wireless services are playing a huge role in the affordability of broadband access in this country. This is especially for those who have a lower income. It is said this will be the new way to the internet.
The tax rate of wireless services on average has doubled and now stands at 15.19%. This high rate of tax has a serious impact on those who are of a lower income. Wireless services are extremely cruical to several millions of Americans in their daily lives.
Legislation would unfairly constrain both the local and state goverments abilities to collect this much needed tax, say some of the local goverment officials.
A majority of local and state goverments are required to balance their budgets. Though the rough economy has made this quite difficult. There are at least 29 states which face combined shortfalls of around 48 billion dollars for the 2009 fiscal year. This is according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Some say that officals must have all revenue opportunities as possible, and Congress should enact legislation which would reempt the taxing authority of local and state goverments. Others say there would not be any impact on local or state goverments because it would have no effect on taxes which were already in place, though would allow for new taxes as long as wireless services were not singled out.
Several disagree though, saying that the Cell Tax Fairness Act would actually only stagnate tax reform by allowing preferential treatment to the industry of wireless services, as well as open up opportunities for other industries for similar exemptions. This would put local as well as state revenues at risk.

This is one issue which will be tossed back and forth for my guess a good while. The last thing anyone needs is yet another tax. Many of us depend on our cell phones much more than we do landlines, so adding a new tax onto it is only going to increase the difficulty level some Americans have at keeping their wireless phones in working order.

[dollardaze]

I'd been reading about these taxes, and I agree with you, just what we need is another tax. I'm sure this debate will be ongoing for quite awhile.

The only good thing I could see coming from a tax on cell phone use is that maybe people would be forced to curtail their use when driving, which may prevent some accidents.

Did you see the report on television with the train engineer that was texting and caused a huge train wreck? The use of cell phones while driving has caused many an accident and I believe should be outlawed. At least they should be totally hands-free while being used while driving. Of course this is just my opinion, but I can't even count the times that I've been narrowly missed by another car with a driver having a cell phone to their ear. It's scary out there.

[pennypinch]

I certainly do not need another tax to worry about as I am sure many of you don't need either. We know taxes are coming though, the economy is in bad shape as is our entire countries financial situation.

I think government needs to be made smaller. It has grown so out of proportion it is unreal. We pay many salaries for unnecessary positions in the government. I certainly hate to see jobs lost but I am tired of paying people to do work that is not needed. This would ease some money for the government. I keep hearing the candidates talking about taking a look at all of the unnecessary posititions and programs and down-sizing but I won't be holding my breath. I have heard this all before! Government keeps growing as does the Federal deficit.

[dimetime]

The one thing we dont need is another tax and I agree that our goverment needs a good cleaning out! I dont think that a new tax on cell phones will help reduce the number of dummies which talk and drive at the same time. I agree though that if you are not using a hands free device on your phone while driving you should recieve a heafty fine or possibly jail time. I too have often barely avoided accidents because other drivers are to busy chatting to pay attention to their driving.

[carol b]

Well I think its all just too much we are just taxed to death already. We aren't the problem here the governments borrowing practices are way out of line. Secondly don't we pay enough taxes for our phones now. God lord we are gonna be back to sending smoke signals if they keep this up.