The War Tax That Never Went Away
The telephone tax initially was a penny a call — a single cent. Writes Ted Roberts: there were only l500 to 2000 phones in the United States. Operating under the premise that any tax is a great tax, regardless of income, Congress imposed this penny levy. Gross income, l500 pennies a month? Evidently a bargain-basement war was in the offing. In l902 the tax was repealed, but then revived in 1914 (World War I loomed) as Congress noticed that telephones were no longer a novelty. There was real money to be made from a phone tax. Fifteen hundred pennies had grown to many thousands of dollars. FULL ARTICLE
Comments (6)
Laurence Vance
I know the solution. Let's adopt the FairTax!
Published: March 14, 2006 9:23 AM
Christopher Meisenzahl
As long as it's "sustainable" and "fair-trade". ;-)
Published: March 14, 2006 11:01 AM
ted roberts
Tom Readmond,of the Americans For Tax Reform has good news. He tells us, that there is legislation in both houses of congress: HR 1898 in the House and S 1321 in the Senate, to cure our telephone tax ills. According to Mr Readmond, the federal excise tax will be "fully" repealed - if the legislation passes. Lets hope so. The previous effort passed the house by 420 to 2, but the senate snoozed on - no action. The website for notifying your congressmen is: http://capwiz.com/atr/issues/alert/?alertid=7565276&type=CO
Published: March 14, 2006 11:14 AM
Aakash
I remember a couple of years ago, there was a vote (perhaps in the U.S. House) to eliminate this tax - the war is over, after all - and I think that that bill passed the House by a solid margin. Apparently, they still haven't axed this tax.
They need to get rid of this, and then the estate tax next [wasn't that supposed to have been eliminated a few years ago as well?].
Published: March 14, 2006 3:45 PM
A.B. Dada
For every $1 in taxes they eliminate, they'll just print $2 more in new currency anyway, making us all the poorer.
What's the point of trying to eliminate this stuff? Just elimite your home phone or move to a PC-to-PC style communications device (Skype for example).
The only way to downsize government is to make choices in your life that remove them from the picture.
Published: March 14, 2006 5:13 PM
quincunx
There is no toll on the Brooklyn Bridge (or Manhattan, Williamsburg, and 59th Street Bridges), ONLY because there is no room to build tolls.
"The only way to downsize government is to make choices in your life that remove them from the picture."
They tend to come after you anyway. To PC-to-PC comm you need a service provider - they charge taxes. I solved the problem by asking my neighbor to use a 20% max bandwith (capped via my equipment) of his wireless for $5/month.
I'm waiting for someone to come up with a cheap solution for having internet access via cell phone voice channel acting as a router to my computer via the USB interface available on some phones. I'd do it my self...if I only had the time.
Published: March 14, 2006 7:14 PM