MyWireless.org® Goes Green

Cell Tax Fairness Act

• Wireless taxes are currently DOUBLE or TRIPLE that of other goods and services.  The excessive state-local tax rate on wireless service increased more than 4 times faster than the rate on other taxable goods and services between January 2003 and July 2007. Clearly, wireless consumers continue to be a target for discriminatory taxes.
• Nationally, wireless consumers pay approximately $21 billion dollars annually in wireless taxes and fees.
• The average wireless consumer already pays over 15% in combined federal, state and local government taxes and fees on their monthly wireless bills.
• 17 States including the District of Columbia – Nebraska, Washington, Florida, New York, Missouri, Rhode Island, Texas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, California, Utah, South Dakota, District of Columbia, Tennessee, Kansas, New Mexico and Colorado – are each above 15 percent in combined monthly wireless taxes and fees. Amazingly, a handful of these states impose rates in excess of 20 percent!
• 28 more states – impose double-digit rates in monthly wireless taxes and fees.
• Unfortunately, many cities often target wireless consumers when they can’t balance their budgets. For example, several years ago the city of Baltimore imposed a $3.50 per-line, per-month charge on Baltimore residents to pay for unrelated city services. This regressive tax applies whether a customer pays $30.00 per-month for service, or $100 per-month for service. What’s worse, consumers buying family-share plans must pay the tax on each line! This is clearly an unfair tax burden for lower and fixed-income wireless consumers, their families and their businesses.
• States like South Dakota, Kentucky and Pennsylvania double-tax wireless consumers by placing a “Gross Receipts Tax” (GRT) on wireless service, on top of the existing state and local sales taxes.
• More than eight years after the National Governors Association (NGA) and the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) called for states to reform and modernize their telecommunications taxes, most states have failed to enact meaningful reform that would benefit wireless consumers. Congress needs to act if the states will not!
• Because unfair, new state and local taxes and fees on wireless services are regressive - and significantly increase consumers’ cost of service - the burden often falls especially hard on fixed-income users such as seniors, working families and small businesses.
• Too often, this hefty tax bite puts wireless services out of reach for far too many who have come to rely upon its value, convenience and safety as a preferred communications tool for their daily lives.