It's About Time!

Since the Federal Telephone Excise Tax was imposed to pay for the Spanish American War, I guess we can now declare victory.
Or is it all part of the Hispanic Immigration debate?

NYTimes:
Phone Tax Laid to Rest at Age 108

"Bowing to changes in technology and pressure from taxpayers and phone companies, the Treasury Department said yesterday that it would scrap the 108-year-old federal excise tax on long-distance phone calls. The move will bring consumers and businesses about $15 billion in refunds on next year's tax returns.

The decision, which applies to cellphones and Internet phone services and some landlines, follows a series of court reversals for the government. Large businesses had successfully sued the Internal Revenue Service to recoup the taxes they paid. Phone companies also wanted the tax abolished to relieve them of having to collect it."

Then the companys pissed and moaned ...
"Phone companies have opposed some of these taxes because of the expense of collecting them, and because it drives up the cost of their services, making them less attractive to consumers."

Excuse me !
Phone companys are billing machines.

A little bit of code should be able to assign a 3% fee.
This is EXACTLY why the politicans are willing to bury "net neutrality" and let phone and cable companys charge for service, to be the tollbooths on the "Information Superhighway" ...
You can't tax what you can't meter.
But if you are a politician, and you let the phone/cable provider run the toll booth, you just tell them to fork over a percent of the proceeds.

Oh yeah, and great timing.
I just canceled a couple of phone lines, along with most of our long distance service (switched to cell).