Posted on 08/03/2005 9:38:34 AM PDT by cll
Grover Norquist and his Americans for Tax Reform are backing an effort to abolish a "temporary" tax on telephones imposed to help fund the Spanish-American War.
"Repealing the Spanish-American War tax is long overdue," said Norquist, president of the anti-tax advocacy group.
"We've been stealing money from telephone users for 107 years to fund a war it took us four months to win. Getting rid of this relic is a major priority of the taxpayer movement."
The Congress passed a law in 1898 imposing a 3 percent tax on every telephone in the country. At the time there were only 1,300 phones in the U.S., and only a wealthy few could afford phone service, so the levy was considered a luxury tax.
It was aimed at offsetting the cost of the $250 million war against Spain, and in the words of the Revenue to Meet War Expenditures Act, would "be naturally repealed or modified when the [necessities] of war and the payment of war expenses have ceased."
Yet more than a century later, the tax remains in effect, bringing in at least $3 billion a year. Congress voted to repeal the tax in 2000, but President Bill Clinton vetoed the measure.
Now Rep. Gary Miller, R-Calif.,) has introduced a new bill to ax the tax. The Americans for Tax Reform Web site is urging the group's supporters to take action, encouraging them to send an e mail to their elected officials demanding an end to the tax.
The Web site (atr.org) says the tax is "highly regressive, as it amounts to a greater share of the income of low-income Americans, minorities and senior citizens."
Norquist's group also says the tax "has strangled the telecommunications industry for a century, stifling innovation and keeping prices high." ATR urges, "Tell your Congressman and Senators to support a repeal of the Spanish-American War tax!"
Not if you're paying it.
MAYBE this time around we'll get action, but I doubt it.
Hey, ya' never know when Spain might get upitty again...
Maybe we should get back to more of a pay as you go setup to pay for our military affairs.
Looking at phone bill....
Basic Rate- $14.00
Federal Subsriber Line Charge-$6.50
Intrastate access-$4.36
911 Service-$2.07
Federal Excise Tax-$.83
Federal Universal Service Charge-$.66
State Sales Tax-$1.53
Total-$29.98
I don't use their long distance. but $14/month phone line gets doubled by access charges and taxes.
We've been paying a tax for 911 numbers for several years in rural PA, but have yet to get allocated an official house number/address. So now 911 dispatches rescue equipment to numbers that the homeowners know nothing about. We still have highway contract numbers and box numbers with no indication of where we actually live.
Article: "Is Grover Norquist an Islamist?" Here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1399502/posts
And that, my FRiend, is exactly the problem. Until the government realizes that it ISN'T their money, the problem will persist.
Is Spain done yet? True, yellow journalism has not paid much attention to Spain lately, but is it really over?
No, the government wants MY money. The whole gist of the article is the ruse is over about this pretense of what the intent of this tax is about.
In my perspective the Spanish-American War is not over since the U.S. Congress has not fulfilled its obligations under the Treaty of Paris of 1898.
Figures. Congress always starts off with good intentions, or intentions anyway, but soon enough loses interest and never finishes anything unless it is a real scary war. The Spanish war wasn't all that scary, so Congress was off to other topics right away.
Does that in any way reflect upon this issue?
I don't like the guy, but he's right on this one.
Abolish it AND refund ALL the money to EVERY taxpayer or their kin unless they were alive during the war.
We need refunds going back 107 years--reparations please.
Tax cuts mean nothing unless there's an accompanying spending cut. Otherwise, they'll just get the lost phone tax revenue from somewhere else. Keep an eye on your cable bill.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.