Looking to do my taxes this weekend and ran across something about this rebate on long distance taxes? Apparently one can either request copies of one’s old phone bills and calculate the amount or one can check a box and get a set amount betweem $30 and $60. My question is, is it worth it to try to calculate an actual amount off old phone bills or is the $30-60 gonna cover the amount that I might expect? My monthly phone bills for dial tone were between $18 and $25 per month throughout the relevant time period and included 60 minutes per month of long distance, and to the best of my recollection I never used any additional LD minutes.
I haven’t actually done the math myself but I’m guessing you can probably receive a greater rebate if you do an actual calculation of taxes paid, rather than taking the fixed amount based on your claimed exemptions. However, I don’t think it will be the difference between, say, $50 and $500, probably more like a difference between $50 and $67.50, or something along those lines.
I plan to click the box and be done with it.
I actually have a few years of phone bills, but the tax was never that large, my taxes take long enough to do already, and I can’t imagine looking up the totals, adding them up, and filling in the form is worth my time. I’m happy to get the $50 in my case.
Remember the Maine!
D’oh! I ignored that box. :o
Federal taxes on the telephone bill have long been popular for tax resistance, since supposedly they are overwhelmingly used for “defense” spending. Interesting there’s a rebate on them. Why are they doing this?
The ‘defense spending’ was the Spanish-American war.
Well, we won. I rest my case.
"The federal excise tax itemized on our telephone bills has been associated with war throughout most of its long history. It was first imposed on toll calls in 1898, during the Spanish-American war era, but removed in 1902. Imposed as a “temporary” tax by the War Tax Revenue Act of 1914, this tax has been used to help raise extra dollars for World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, as well as weapons of every conceivable kind. "
huh?