I didn’t do it this year, but I admit that sometimes in the past I’ve been a little slow to pay my taxes. Not so slow that I was late, but I’ve been known to be one of those folks you see on the TV news who are lined up at the post office on April 15^th, income tax return envelopes in hand. I hope you planned accordingly this year, but no matter whether you were an early bird or one of the stragglers, now that paying our 2011 taxes is out of the way we can turn our attention to 2012, and a couple of proposed bills in Congress that could help all of us with our wireless taxes and fees. The “Wireless Tax Fairness Act” and the “Digital Goods and Services Tax Fairness Act” are both consumer-friendly proposals that would take that bulls-eye off the backs of the hundreds of millions of American wireless users.

Here’s what they’d do. The strongly bipartisan Wireless Tax Fairness Act (H.R. 1002 / S. 543), calls for a 5-year moratorium to be placed on any new and discriminatory wireless taxes & fees at the state and local levels. It passed by a unanimous voice vote in the House on November 1^st of last year, and is currently being considered before the Senate Finance Committee. The Digital Goods and Services Tax Fairness Act (H.R. 1860 / S. 971) is also strongly bipartisan, and would prohibit a state or local jurisdiction from imposing multiple or discriminatory taxes on the sale or use of digital goods or services that are purchased with wireless, and are then delivered or transferred electronically to a consumer. These bills are being considered by the Senate Finance and the House Judiciary committees, respectively.

This legislation is sorely needed because of the unchecked state of wireless taxes and fees in America today. Wireless consumers pay, on average, more than 16% of their monthly bill in taxes and fees. That compares to the rate of a little more than 7% that we pay on average for other general goods and services. It just doesn’t seem right that our elected officials are encouraging the spread of technology, but yet we as consumers must pay such a high rate for a service as important to our personal and professional lives as wireless communication. The digital goods bill also cuts wireless consumers a break. Today it’s possible that you could be taxed by multiple jurisdictions for the same digital download, and that’s simply not fair either. If you are a member of MyWireless.org and follow along with this blog, you know we whole-heartedly support the passage of these two critical pieces of legislation before the Congress adjourns this year.

Frankly, now that we have all stepped up to our own tax obligations, don’t you think it’s time for Congress to step up to theirs as well, by establishing a fair and sensible tax structure for wireless consumers? More than 300 million Americans just like you and I are using wireless technology today, and we’re being subjected to an outdated tax system that has us all paying wireless taxes that are well more than our fair share, and putting us at risk of being unfairly taxed multiple times for the same digital purchase.

We also want to say a huge “Thanks!” for the leadership and the efforts of Senators Wyden, Snowe and Thune, and Representatives Lofgren, Franks, Smith and Cohen, as well as all of the co-sponsors of these important bills. There’s honestly no better time to highlight their pro-consumer work than right now with Tax Week here in America. We urge Senate Finance Chairman Baucus to consider BOTH pieces of legislation in an upcoming ‘Tax Reform – State and Local Fiscal Policy’ hearing, and to help hundreds of millions of consumers both by taking a real look at reform. It’s time we finally take these outdated tax laws off the books. None of us probably likes to pay taxes, especially at this time every year, but passing these two bills can go a long way toward just paying our fair share of wireless taxes.

(Photo Credit: MoneyBlogNewz, Creative Commons license.)