Posted on 12/12/2018 3:45:39 PM PST by NoLibZone
Californians may or may not type OMG at the news, but texting may soon come with an extra fee on their mobile phone bills. State regulators are weighing a tax on the popular communications tool to help fund a program that makes phone service available to low-income residents.
A texting surcharge could help sustain the Public Purpose Program budget, which has risen to $998 million in 2017 from $670 million in 2011, according to a report from the California Public Utilities Commission. Revenue from the telecom industry that funds the program has declined to $11.3 billion last year from $16.5 billion in 2011, the CPUC report stated.
"From a consumer's point of view, surcharges may be a wash, because if more surcharge revenues come from texting services, less would be needed from voice services," a CPUC spokesperson told the newspaper in a statement.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Unfortunately everything that’s happening in Mexifornia will happen to your state. Rust never sleeps and commies don’t stop their stupid $hit.
I’m sure somehow they’ll fix it so only citizens will have to pay these taxes.
I don’t care if government closes.
Burn it all down and start over already.
Unbelievable.
Blood sucking tax leeches.
Revenues are down so you want to tax it some some more......what could possibly go wrong? Before long people may even learn how to talk to one another in the flesh instead of through electronic communications. Wait, there’s another idea. Pass an electricity transit tax on all communications in or passing through California.
Do it California at the rate of $ 10,000 per each letter typed
Me believes this is part of the commie liberal plan to enhance and intice the middle class exodus from the state. Kalifornia is leading the pack of the NWO plan in eliminating US society of a middle class. As Kalifornia goes, so goes the nation. At least thats been the trend for the past 40+ years.
To make the tax fair, they should make the tax progressive, having lower rates for letters that poor people use more often.
Only smart people use letters like Q and Z. Those letters should be taxed at a higher rate.
And don’t get me started on punctuation.
¢ will be charged in the highest rate class because it’s off the chart (8 bit ascii chart, that is).
Fortunately, a Federal court put the kibosh on that attempt.
I'm not sure that that's *entirely* true.Given that my state is about as far as you can get from the Mexican border...along with our distinctly less-than-tropical climate...it's unlikely that we'll ever have quite the same problem with wetbacks that Kalifornia has.Of course I understand that wetbacks aren't Kalifornia's *only* problem.
They all need hanging from lamp posts.
All of them.
Damn Democrats will not stop until they are standing there waiting for you to hand over your paycheck when you get it.
Considering half the txt messages I got before the election were from Democrats I’d be pissed if I had to pay a tax for each one they sent.
I read here somewhere that NO INCUMBENT in California has LOST a race since 1994....NOT ONE!
Tax texts, yet Robo Calls ride free.
Follow the money.
Not that I approve of this at all, but why don’t they just up the surcharge on the current phone tax? Why add another line item to the existing bill?
Not that I expect these leftist lunatics to understand, but I would contend that a “text-tax” would violate free speech rights. You have the right to text. You don’t have a right to a phone (or apparrantly you do, if you can prove you can’t afford one one will be given to you). Since the phone is the privilege, that tax is legal. A tax on speech and writing is unconstitutional.
Already $12.24 in itemized taxes/fees/surcharges on my 3-line cellular bill in CA...only one “surcharge” listed (”State Public Utility Surcharge”...4 cents per line...CPUC salaries I reckon). Anyway, the only “free speech” is verbal face-to-face I guess...government can tax everything else. ISP service taxes and Internet sales taxes are next.
Have relatives in a different state purchase cell phone service for you at their address.
The article says they need more money in the current program to give free phones away. They already have the program in place so why these morons want to create yet another tax, another bureau, another line item, more work for state auditors etc is beyond me. (No actually it is not beyond me, I can think of many reasons why they would want to but they are effing lunatics).
As for free speech, then lets tax CNN and the WashPost and Twitter and Facebook too. Of course, I don’t actually believe that. IMO they cannot tax our speech period. By any means we use to communicate. They can, though I hate it, tax our utilities. All they need to do is keep it simple.
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