Marathon Pundit: Nebraska just the worst of cell phone taxers

A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money.
Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen, (R-IL), date of quote unknown.

And so it is with cellular phone taxes. And it's hard to believe, but Nebraska, one of the reddest of the red states, has the highest cell phone taxes in the nation, according to the CTIA-The Wireless Association. Taxes on cell phones average 15 percent nationwide, and no one, other than the tax collectors, are happy about it. There are a lot of little taxes on each cell phone, landline, and other utility bills. Cable invoices too. And I'm sure it all adds up to "real money."

From the Omaha World-Herald:

Nebraska ranks No. 1 mainly because of two charges.

One is a 4.37 percent monthly fee for the state's Universal Service Fund, the highest in the nation of any such state fund.

The other is for a special business tax assessed mainly in Omaha and Lincoln, said Scott Mackey, a Vermont consultant who conducted the survey. The tax also is known as an occupation tax.

Nebraska's monthly charge on cell phone bills averages 22.54 percent — state and local charges totaling 18.35 percent plus the federal rate of 4.19 percent.

The lowest mobile phone tax rate in the nation? Surprise! It's Oregon at just 5.85 percent.

Read here for more on the Universal Service Fund. I can only guess why the USF fee is so high in Nebraska, but the vast sparsely populated areas there, such as the Sand Hills and Panhandle regions, is probably the culprit.

In the House of Representatives two Republicans, Adrian Smith of Nebraska and Chris Cannon of Utah, are working on legislation supporting a three-year national moratorium on wireless phone taxes.

Senator John McCain is working on a similar bill in the upper chamber, and has made banning new cell phone taxes part of his presidential campaign anti-tax push.

From his site:

John McCain understands that the same people that would tax e-mail will tax every text message -- and even 911 calls. John McCain will prohibit new cellular telephone taxes.

Disclosure: I work in the telecommunications industry, but no one asked me to post this entry.

Related post:

Stop the proposed Cook County phone tax

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