Posted on 12/12/2018 7:58:37 AM PST by Rusty0604
California state regulators have been working on a plan to charge mobile phone users a text messaging fee intended to fund programs that make phone service accessible to the low-income residents, reports said Tuesday.
It’s a dumb idea,” Jim Wunderman, president of the Bay Area Council business group, told the paper. “This is how conversations take place in this day and age, and it’s almost like saying there should be a tax on the conversations we have.”
While the amount consumers would be expected to pay remained unclear, some business groups are saying the new charges could cost wireless users more than $44 million a year, FOX11 Los Angeles reported.
Charges may also be applied retroactively to messages sent in the past five years, which has raised questions concerning the proposal’s legality, Rufus Jeffress, vice president of the Bay Area Council, told the San Francisco Bay Area's KNTV-TV. The “alarming precedent” could chalk up to a bill of more than $220 million for consumers, the Mercury News reported.
Those against the proposal said that wireless customers already pay into the state’s Public Purpose Programs, which they call “healthy and well-funded” with nearly $1 billion in its budget, the Mercury News reported. But state regulators disagree, saying the budget has increased more than $300 million over six years, KNTV reported.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Anybody with teenage daughters will be bled dry.
They don’t text. They use instagram.
Lol Thread winner.
I did a search, different wording on the titles so I didn’t see it.
Great! Time for Californians to start living their dream. I think that the state of California should tax residents 100% and only give back what the wise and wonderful government thinks each person needs.
Time for the Yellow-Vests to come to the USA
The 1st amendment is now pay to play?
Wrong. They don’t tax instagram.
California’s going to die a long, slow, agonizing death. It’s better to let go. Just let go.
“The 1st amendment is now pay to play?”
LOL. like phone calls have been free?
Someone will just create a messaging app that isn’t covered under the statute and everyone will use that instead.
Snapchat and Instagram, and a variety of others.
My kids were teens when they still charged per-text.
Their friends would run the bill into the stratosphere.
My daughter did that to me, once.
Of course there’s a million “not quite text” apps out there like FB messenger. People will use those, so they’re not sending texts, and so much for your tax.
DNR!
Its a modern day version of the Stamp Act. That worked out so well for the British.
The rate will increase and the revenue will disappear into the budget like a spoonful of water into the ocean. And then they’ll want more taxes. The pattern is well established.
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