HOLY CRAP! A TAX BITES THE DUST!

Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune: Something worth calling home about

Consumers can claim a standard $30 to $60 refund next year for a tax on long-distance telephone calls that the government has declared invalid, the Internal Revenue Service announced Thursday.

Telephone customers had been paying the 3 percent federal excise tax on local and long-distance service. The government last month stopped collecting the tax on long-distance calls after businesses repeatedly fought the tax in court and won.

Next year, consumers can use their 2006 tax returns to claim a refund on long-distance telephone taxes paid since March 2003. The standard refund starts at $30 and increases by $10 for each additional exemption claimed on a tax return, up to $60. A married couple with two dependent children, for example, could claim a $60 refund.

The IRS will add a line to the 2006 tax returns, enabling individuals to claim the refund. There will also be a form for people not otherwise required to file tax returns, so they can request their money back.

"These amounts save taxpayers from locating 41 months of old phone bills and analyzing these bills to determine the taxes paid," said IRS Commissioner Mark Everson.

The IRS said that it based the refund amounts on telephone usage data, and that the figures reflect averages for households of different sizes.
Individuals do not have to use the standard amount. Consumers can instead add up the taxes they paid between March 2003 and July 2006 and apply for a refund.

I KNEW I should have kept those phone bills!

In recent years, multiple businesses successfully challenged the tax because it applied to long-distance calls billed according to time and distance, a billing formula mostly replaced by flat-rate calling plans.

The Treasury Department has said it expects to return $13 billion to phone customers, including businesses and other organizations.

Golly, I wonder if that means we'll have to cut back on the number of rubbers we're shipping to Africa?