Sacramento wants to tax text messages!!11!

[cboy4]

:wtf:



By Terri Hardy - [e-mail]

Last Updated 6:01 am PDT Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Story appeared in MAIN NEWS section, Page A1



OMG. Sac wants 2 tax texts!

The city of Sacramento will ask voters to agree to pay local taxes on new technology such as text messaging and phone service offered over the Internet in exchange for lowering taxes for land-line phones and other utilities.

On Tuesday, the City Council unanimously voted to put a measure on the Nov. 4 ballot that would decrease the utility users tax from 7.5 percent to 7 percent. It would require a simple majority to pass.

Two main factors are driving the action: First, the city's ability to collect taxes on cell phones and other communications methods is facing legal challenges. Second, taxes on old technology, such as regular telephones, are generating less revenue.

<snip>

The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, however, has a different description of the city's proposal: "baloney."

"They're packaging it as a tax reduction and it's not. It's an increase," said Timothy Bittle, director of legal affairs for the taxpayers group. "They're not only trying to hoodwink voters to ratify a tax on cell phones, but they're adding insult to injury by extending it to all current and future technologies."

http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/1021763.html

[AlCzervik]

1. omg i think i actually agree with The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association

please, someone get me a fainting couch and the salts.

[cboy4]

2. I know, I was thinking the same thing!!

LOL

SAC is trying to come up with every sneaky way possible to fix its budget deficit, although selfishly, I'm not as mad since I live in a city that isn't nearly as broke.

[AlCzervik]

3. we're pretty broke down here in EG but that's what happens when developers

run the city and then sneak out in the middle of the night. At this point i'd be happy to have a library that's actually functioning.

[wvbygod]

4. Moving it from normal phones/usage to texting is fine by me

Think of it as a luxury tax. The hearing impaired, of course, should be exempt.

[cboy4]

5. No, I won't think of it as a luxury tax since it's not a

definitive luxury.

Lots of people, including myself, text as part of business.

Instead of stepping outside of meetings to take calls or make calls, I can quickly respond with short answers/comments, etc.

Try not to think of text messaging as only a bunch of people BS'ing with friends, because that's a misconception.

[NashVegas]

6. I'm Tired of Subsidizing Cell Phone Use With My Landline

Between taxes and fees, an additional $12 gets tacked onto my land line phone bill every month - a 100% increase above the basic (I use Working Assets for LD) line charge.

By contrast, my cell phone taxes and fees are less than 20% of my basic.

[TheWraith]

14. The solution is not to tax cell phones more.

It's a poorly known fact that 90% of the fees and "taxes" placed on phone bills aren't government mandated at all: they're the phone company's way of stealthily increasing their rates by billing you for things that they're required to do, like providing 911 or E911 service, and complying with regulatory rules. (The famous "Regulatory Recovery Fee.") It's greed, and the use of government as an excuse for making more money in an already high-profit industry.

If you want a lower phone bill, we should put through a bill requiring companies to advertise "all in" prices including taxes and fees.

[LeftyMom]

7. Tax the young!

That's about what it would work out to, what with the reduction in the rate on landlines (who has landlines anymore? OLD PEOPLE) and the tax on text messaging (who texts constantly? Teenagers.)

[OhioChick]

8. Tax the young?

My kids get over 50 texts EACH... every damn month from the military begging them to join. I already have to pay for each of those texts....why should I also have to pay tax on them, as well?

[LeftyMom]

9. Oooh, I feel sorry for the first recruiter who ever bothers my kid...

He's all of seven now, and as young as they start in on them anymore it probably won't be a whole lot longer. :eyes:

[OhioChick]

10. They started on one of mine

When he just entered HS. (What's that....13 or 14?) You can't stop them......they call like hell, text message, send you all sorts of info in the mail weekly, etc.

They actually went to one of my kid's friend's homes. They want him like hell because he speaks Arabic. His parents were fumed as they were scaring the hell out of the kid.

It's getting to be harassment...

[slackmaster]

11. pEpl wl lrn 2 abevE8 betr

:nuke:

[bridgit]

13. 4eelz

[bridgit]

12. Between room, cable & utility taxes, Sacramento is already among the more expensive cities...

to live in. We use Metro, it's bundled and goes where we go. Sacto can think all it wants to about texts sailing past equaling money in it's coffer, but it would be costly as well tracking, pulling, accounting for then taxing texts out of so much cell activity.

I say text tax a non-starter, 'sides...I'm still looking for the city planner that changed 21st St through midtown from three lanes to two so I can stomp on his foot. Oh yeah, Sacramento's got some of the goofiest people thinking the weirdest shit

[Nikki Stone1]

15. The poor would be better able to afford land lines and necessary phone service

for a small sacrifice tax on the cell phones of the better heeled. I thought we were Democrats here.

[OhioChick]

16. To be quite frank....

It's cheaper here to have a cell than a land line.

[Nikki Stone1]

17. Really? Even for long distance?

I know that in LA I can get a monthly feel of about $45 and that covers all my local and long distance calling within the US. Most cell phone plans I have seen charge you for long distance unless you're in the same network or unless you're within a certain number of points.