I was looking at my Verizon home phone bill the other day. I continue to pay $63.99/month for the privilege of having a home phone even though I essentially have no need for one. My wife and I live off our cell phones and the home phone ringing doesn’t even get a blink out of me, much less having any chance of it actually being answered. I couldn’t even tell you the last time I answered my home phone, 98% of the calls are telemarketers and anyone who knows me calls my cell.
So, I decided to see exactly what I was paying for. Here’s the breakdown of my bill. The Verizon Freedom Essentials plan costs me $49.99/month. That’s a middle of the road package I believe. Beyond the $49.99, every other penny getting me to $63.99 is a tax. The taxes breakdown as follows:
Virginia Public Rights-of-Way Use Fee $0.89
Federal Universal Service Fund Surcharge Long Distance 1.92
Virginia Cost Recovery Surcharge 0.31
Virginia Federal Universal Service Fund Surcharge 0.80
Federal Excise Tax 0.19
E-911 Tax 0.75
Virginia Communications Sales Tax 2.96
Federal Subscriber Line Charge 6.18
Total Taxes & Fees $14.00
Doing the math, almost 22% of my home phone bill is taxes. That implies a tax rate on home phone service of 28%! That is unbelievable. Every month I pay $14 in taxes, or 28% on top of my actual service charge to some governmental body. With the exception of the E-911 Tax, which I’m pretty confident is related to 911 emergency service, and the Sales Tax, I have no idea what any of these other items mean or provide.
Odds are I will keep my home phone for the foreseeable future and continue to pay these exorbitant taxes and fees. But it does further my belief that our governments: state, local and federal do not have revenue problems, they have spending problems. This article isn’t a call to start protesting land line phone taxes, but rather an “interesting” observation about all the ways the government reaches into our pockets on a daily basis.
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