Los Angeles To Begin Taxing VoIP
Source: www.voip-news.com
From the surface, it sounded like a good thing: the City Council in Los Angeles wants to lower the city-levied tax on phone usage from 10 percent to 9 percent. But in reality, the tax language is expanding to cover more areas of communication including VoIP calls. In plain English, that will mean more taxes, not less, for some Los Angeles residents.
Here’s a snippet from the Daily Bulletin of Inland Valley:
Apart from lowering the tax 1 percentage point, it swaps in broad language that covers a wider range of telephone-like technology and allows the city to tax the routing of voice, audio, video, data or other communication information transmitted through fiber-optic coaxial cables, power lines, broadband, DSL or wireless systems.
City leaders have said they cannot estimate how much the tax on modern telephone services will generate, but several officials said they expect the new revenue will recoup the $27 million the city will lose by reducing the tax rate from 10 percent to 9 percent.
Voters approved the measure, which needed a simply majority to pass.
What do you think about taxing VoIP?
