Copyright 2000 The Houston Chronicle Publishing Company
The Houston Chronicle
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May 14, 2000, Sunday 2 STAR EDITION
SECTION: OUTLOOK; Pg. 2
LENGTH: 292 words
HEADLINE:
TAX ON TALKING;
Government still enjoys century-old temporary measure
SOURCE: Staff
BODY:
Three percent of the cost of calling your mother today
will go to the federal government due to a luxury tax first imposed 102 years
ago to help finance the Spanish-American War.
The excise tax on talking
over the telephone was supposed to be a temporary one when it was introduced in
1898.
Over the years it was repealed and then reimposed. Today, it is
still there on your telephone bill, more than a full century after Teddy
Roosevelt led his fabled charge up San Juan Hill.
Now a bipartisan
effort is under way in Congress to repeal the tax - once and for all. Rep. Bill
Archer, R-Houston, says the House Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee will
mark up a bill to eliminate the tax on Wednesday.
That would be a good
idea. It's about time.
Why? Simple. The federal budget is considered to
be in surplus, and telephones are no longer luxuries. Telephones are
necessities. Try living or running a business without one.
This talking
tax should be repealed for several reasons. It is regressive in that the poorest
people pay at the same rate as the richest.
Repealing the tax would
achieve what Congress intended in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 - to reduce
the bills of telephone customers.
Finally, the tax is paid on Internet
access, and more and more Americans have telephone lines dedicated for Internet
service - this at a time when Congress does not want to be taxing the Internet.
Easy taxing of the public, like a 3 percent excise tax on everybody's
telephone bill, is an idea that is naturally liked by government. It will be
hard to put an end to it.
But repealing this unnecessary tax would save
consumers $ 24 billion over five years. The lost taxes could be covered by the
non-Social Security budget surplus.
LANGUAGE:
ENGLISH
TYPE: Editorial Opinion
LOAD-DATE: May 15, 2000 
