Court Says VoIP Is Not A Telco Service; States Can't Tax It As One
from the just-say-no-to-usf dept
In recent years, various state regulators, desperate to dredge up extra tax income, have targeted VoIP providers, using the infamous "like a duck" test, to say that since they look like a traditional telephone service, they need to pay taxes like one -- despite the fact that they don't make use of the same infrastructure (which is part of the reason why telco services were taxed in the first place). A couple years ago, an appeals court rejected this theory in Minnesota, and now an appeals court has come to the same conclusion in Nebraska, stating that VoIP services, such as Vonage, are not telecom service providers, and thus are not responsible for taxes such as the Universal Service Fund. Of course, this also contradicts some other rulings... so perhaps we'll eventually see this in the Supreme Court as well.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: telco service, voip
Companies: vonage
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A Mess I Tell You
Look at the Universal Service Fund where does that money go? How much is it? How is it administered?
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Re:
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you remind me of myself, when i was young and stupid and thought i could make a difference.
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candidates not part of the 'lizard' parties thus don't have a hope in most long running democratic systems.
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I vote the Straight Clevage ticket!
Except for Monica's ol' man's wife.
Eccccch.
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Careful Now
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Re: Careful Now
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Err, no. They use digital ATM backbones, but it's not Internet Protocol, thus not VoIP.
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More like a tax
"The fund is maintained through contributions made by telecommunications providers across the country and is disbursed based on four primary support programs."
contributions ?
So is it a tax or a charitable contribution ?
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Re: More like a tax
This is just another of many many things that need to be fixed. Either that or wait for socialism to fully engulf us and then we won't have to worry about it any more.
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Re: Re: More like a tax
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Re: Re: More like a tax
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voip tax
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What infrastructure are you referring to? The infrastructure that the Telco's put in? The right of way?
What happens if you get Vonage over DSL? Then that is the same infrastructure as the telco's.
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Re:
Vonage is a service runs over a variety of Internet paths. It doesn't matter if it's DSL or not. Now if they want to tax DSL over telephone lines as if it's a telco service then that's a different question.
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Which is why I didn't understand this passage. I don't understand what the infrastructure has to do with the equation, since the infrastructure is owned by the telco and wouldn't be the reason for the taxation.
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USF is a joke
And I haven't even mentioned the additional billions telcoms got out of the bailout bill.
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Universal Slush Fund
Then politicians started playing Santa with it. About 11 years ago I worked for a Canadian company that booked millions in easy sales from US school boards when the universal service fund was used for "educational connectivity," which means free computer stuff for school boards. They were placing these gigantic orders because they knew it was a windfall that would not last.
I lost all respect for the universal slush fund right there.
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