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California Considers Text Messaging Tax To Fund Cell Service For Low-Income Residents (thehill.com)
According to a report from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), California may soon tax text messaging to help fund programs that make phone service available for low-income residents. The report says the tax would likely be a flat fee added to a monthly bill instead of a per text tax. The Hill reports: The report outlines the shrinking revenue coming from a current tax on the telecommunications industry and argues that a new tax on text messaging should be put in place to make up for it. "From a consumer's point of view, surcharges may be a wash, because if more surcharge revenues come from texting services, less would be needed from voice services," CPUC spokeswoman Constance Gordon said in a statement. "Generally, those consumers who create greater texting revenues may pay a bit more, whereas consumers using more voice services may pay less." "Parties supporting the collection of surcharges on text messaging revenue argue that it will help preserve and advance universal service by increasing the revenue base upon which Public Purpose Programs rely. We agree," the report states. The CTIA, a trade association representing major carriers in the wireless industry, says the tax is anti-competitive and would put carriers at a disadvantage against social media messaging apps from tech companies such as Google and Facebook. The CPUC is expected to vote on the proposal in January 2019.
The iPhone crowd have their own messaging system and the rest uses whatsapp et al.
If the tax gets through, the latter will be used by everyone.
So people will be billed for incoming? with only choice to get out of it to block all txt
FU
for low income residences than with a regressive tax that disproportionately impacts the working class, including the working poor.
Seriously, in 2018 does anyone still fall for this crap? It's like when they rebranded trickle down economics as "Tax cuts for Job Creators" and left out the fact that "Job Creators" don't pay taxes when they invest in their companies...
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When a state needs to tax everything tech, considers a ban on ban employee cafeteria?
Wont enforce laws about trash and waste in the streets. Park RV and tents in the streets.
Has to clean waste from its streets.
How many more "tech" tax attempts before tech understands that many other US states are clean, safe, welcoming and low tax?
Move to a state where you don't have to "pay a bit more" in new tech tax and you can invest a lot more.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Should tax people on a per character basis.
Don't want to pay the tax turn off texting. Your regressive tax has just become progressive.
How bout taxing things like multiple lines, or those $1000 phones or something? Oops that would tax those that are well off, best to tax something the poor have to use to reduce their voice and data costs.
Let's tax every stupid idea a politician has. 1 cent per.
We'd be able to pay off the national debt before the end of the year.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
California will tax itself into prosperity.
Get rid of the bureaucrats.
Corporatism != Free Market
What can possibly be more logically coherent than regressive taxes to help the poor?
After massive fraud magnet that USF has proven to be states just can't help themselves to more of the same.
Just as long as it doesn't send us back to the dark ages of text messaging (2008).
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
You can have a prepaid cell in California for $12/month. No one needs subsidizing. End the subsidizing and you don't need a new tax. ffs.
Because text messaging is cheap enough for us "Low Income" folks.... i dont get it.
[($)]
The interstate commerce clause does not apply, for two very distinct reasons.
First, you are not being taxed on the texts themselves. Second, there is no prohibition on states taxing things merely because they can be used in such commerce, and in fact, Congress has consented to these taxes.
..or how about the TelCos make it affordable or hell, even free, for low income families! There is a thought since they charge the rest of us enough and post profits that boggle your mind.
Let's play a game. Somebody posts a news story and the rest of us try to guess whether it comes from the Onion or from California.
That could be a very challenging game.
Okay, okay - I know someone reading this probably *likes* California, and doesn't think California politics is ridiculous. That's cool. Thanks to Article 1 of the Constitution, the rest of us aren't allowed to tell you how to live. California can have whatever laws you all want. Just in case anyone forgets to read Article 1, the framers repeated it in the 10th Amendment:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
So don't worry. Even though I think you guys are a parody of yourselves, I'm not going to try to stop you, I can't stop you. You can tax blinking if you want to.
It says flat tax. If your cellular service includes texting you get an extra tax.
Better known as 318230.
Tax reality TV stars at 25000%, sure that just means they will all leave ... but how is that a bad thing?
And he grew up as a Pony Express rider and lost his job to Union Telegraph.
No he didn't. Stop making stuff up.
I know how much you Americans love making up myths about your heroic presidents, but that one is straight up bullshit.
That makes a lot more sense than taxing text messages
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
My sister and I recently moved from California to Colorado to take advantage of the lower cost of living. However, we both kept our cell phone numbers to make it easier for friends and family to keep in touch. We often text each other to avoid distracting a driver, and since the area codes are in a different state, would this be recorded as interstate commerce?
Good, inexpensive web hosting
Should tax people on a per character basis.
Why do you hate character actors so?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
1. If it's going to be a wash because they will lower voice service taxes, why bother, just take a portion of voice service taxes - unless somehow California has separate governments for voice and text services.
2. How do I reconcile those two statements:
"The report says the tax would likely be a flat fee added to a monthly bill instead of a per text tax."
"consumers who create greater texting revenues may pay a bit more"
If the tax is flat, how to consumers who create greater texting revenue pay more? Did they not think it through, or just telling people whatever they want to hear?.
This is straight from the government "How to get some more money to skim from" handbook - ask for a new tax, make it small do people don't think it matters, tell everyone what they want to hear, get sufficient approval (or indifference) from the public to add the new tax, wait a year, increase the new tax, award new contracts to people who now owe you. After all, six taxes at 4% each don't seem as bad as one at 24%, right?
The plan is to tax any messages sent not only in the future, but any sent within the past FIVE YEARS
This is what happens when you give Democrats mega-majorities in legislatures. In California they now control the state Senate and state Assembly by far more than even a 3/2 super-majority. No non-Democrat has any say in California state politics at this point.
Funny that when your side does this stuff, you cannot deny it so you just try to minimize it (ahhh... who cares? nobody even does it anymore...). If that was true then the tax would raise no revenue and there would be no point to the tax. The Democrats who run California clearly expect a large pile of cash from this, which they are planning to spend funding more re-distributionist programs, so you are clearly just blowing smoke.
Own it.
Go back to e-mail. Or IRC, or ....
Have gnu, will travel.
Change your billing address to your parents house.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
I can almost guarantee that their "low income" definition will have a hard cut-off. This will just make the hurdle of transitioning from welfare to work that much harder to jump. Anybody above the low income bar will be regressively taxed. California's government really needs to turn in it's progressive card. They've totally forgotten what that word originally meant.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
This is pretty interesting, but what is going to be really interesting is to see how governments end up replacing gas taxes as electric cars become more popular...
They are going to have to do something, in the end I am thinking it will probably have to be an extra yearly fee on electric vehicles. Which will make hybrids rather unpopular, as you get taxed twice...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Taxes are cornerstones of modern bureaucracy, particularly ones that are used to collect your taxes.
There, Fixed it for you!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Try getting a job when no one can follow up with a phone call.
the French are right.
Yeah... Fuck the poor!
That was the Romans
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
If you like California, of course you wouldn't want me to come there are ruin it for you. That's cool. I got the F out of California.
I wouldn't want you to bring your California crap to Texas. We prefer different things.
We're both fortunate that we live in a country that has federalism - each state can do what they want, with the federal afederation) government only doing the things that need to be done at that level, like national defense. You do you, and I'll do me.
> 5th largest economy
I hear that a lot from Californians. Yeah California is big. Big economy. Right up there with India, Mexico, China. For me, I don't want an economy like India and Mexico. I'd rather have money to do what needs to be done. I'm not sure I'd be bragging about my state being a BIG pile of crap. California's economy, like Mexico's, is big - okay and ... ?
I'm sure California has some great things to brag about. Being economically similar to India can't be the best thing, can it? Maybe it is. Maybe "we're like India, big economy" is the best thing that can be said about California.
> On behalf of California, one of the most prosperous states
I would have died laughing if autocorrect had made that "one of the most preposterous states".
Seriously I'm glad you like where you live.
I like where I live.
If you ever get to a point where you're dead broke because all of the stable companies have left California, and you hear about getting a 3,500 square foot house in Dallas for $250,000, near the new Toyota headquarters, come on over if you want. Only thing - if you do end up fleeing from economic failure, try not to bring the same failing ideas with you. That's all. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy California as long as you live there.
data isn't. So if you have a pricey plan and an iPhone you won't notice this in the slightest. If you've got a cheap subsidized burner phone it'll hit you hard. You'll have to choose between texting and doing your homework. A lot of regressives like that choice.
There's a sizable group of people in this country that want poor people to suffer. The idea is that their suffering will encourage them to stop being so damn poor. Now, virtually all research on the topic shows that pressure does not in fact make diamonds, and instead the stress from constantly being screwed and the mental gymnastics poor folks do calculating every little nickle and dime stolen from them exhausts them and leads to poor decision making, but that's not the point. Some folks just want somebody else to have it worse them them, and they don't care how that happens.
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You can't like, own a lawn, man. It's part of Mother Earth.
Which I already do.
Number of texts I have sent or received in the last 5 years: 0
Maintaining a developed civilization isn't free, it costs money. But you want to enjoy that standard of living without paying for its upkeep - so fuck your self, you self-centered parasite.
"I hear that a lot from Californians. Yeah California is big. Big economy. Right up there with India, Mexico, China. For me, I don't want an economy like India and Mexico. "
One of the worst parts of Texas is simply driving through it. Texas has been so driven by economic growth that it has almost not public land left. Driving through the desert there is like driving through some sort of post apocalyptic scenario of abandoned business'. Texas' economy is exactly like that of the countries you try put on California with no supporting arguments. Nothing is sacred and everything is for sale.
And how about your one proper hub of innovation? Oh, Austin? They're bluer than any blue state.
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Individuals making $27,000 a year (the approximate current limit) can afford to pay $10-$15 a month for a basic phone plan. Reduce the maximum income to $20,000, or to whatever it takes to fit within the program's funds. Or if you must, make it be for homeless people only -- they're the ones whose lives it makes the most difference in (connecting them to services and making it more possible to find work).
Incidentally, this same approach could help California's affordable housing crisis. Stop making families with $60K+ incomes eligible for subsidized apartments and suddenly those 2 year waiting lists will evaporate and the needy will get housing.
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Hey cool. I *thought* you could come up with something better than "our economy is like Mexico, India, and Russia".
See that's really cool you live in a place where half the land is owned by the federal government, compared to Texas where we own our own homes that we live in. That's awesome. Renting an apartment next to a federal hazardous waste^H^H^H^H^H preserve is much better.
One of my favorite things about California is that you can pick your season. You can waterski on Saturday and snow ski on Sunday, a fairly short drive from the beach to the mountains. That's pretty neat.
Well, rule out any method that doesn't involve the taxation itself adding an additional unnecessary cost that is paid for through the act of taxation.
For example, in Oregon they're already piloting a GPS unit that you're required by law to connect to your vehicles diagnostic port. How's that for convoluted and needlessly expensive? It even comes with with the added bonus of privacy and security concerns.
Sacramento is going to piss themselves in excitement in copying this system for their state, if they haven't already.
In fact, in CA, the poor have to pay for the Lifeline help for people in other states, yet they cannot get help.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
Oh bugger.
Whoosh!
"Prop13 houses" are ALL houses (including ones being rented, which means higher rents would follow).
Back in the late 1970s, elderly people barely managing on Social security were being kicked out of their homes as the state government re-assessed their home values every year (inflating the values at higher than the Jimmy carter era double-digit inflation rates) and kept raising the taxes. As the tax bills went up, the elderly were rendered bankrupt and their homes were being grabbed by the state. Prop13 was part of a set of revolts against the power-mad Democrats back then (another was the recall of the state supreme court judges after the majority of them stopped enforcing laws they did not like). It's completely EVIL to take the home of a senior on meager income who paid taxes his/her whole life in order to get cash for people who are not even legally in the country!
ALL Homes in California are taxed fairly heavily, Prop13 only LIMITS THE RATE OF INCREASE in the taxes.
California Democrats have long despised Prop13 because it effectively forces them to rob school funds and road funds so they can keep packing billions of dollars into the state workers union pensions, highspeed railroad to nowhere plans, free lawyers and housing and welfare for illegal aliens, and so forth (CA spent @23 BILLION on illegals last year). They have to keep packing those pensions in order to keep the votes of those unions and keep getting elected. We have prison dentists here who are retired on more than $00K per year in pensions and San Diego even has a firefighter who was never injured on duty yet collects over $600K per year in pensions. It's how thw Democrats get their power here (State employee unions + support for illegal aliens).
No multiple personalities.
This is another great idea from the California legislators, they need to keep up the good work. All of these new taxes, welfare programs and regulations are exactly what the people of California asked for and need.....to make other states look more attractive for businesses and people. Soon the whole state will be like one massive Detroit: corrupt, bankrupt and overwhelm with crime.
for left wing candidates who oppose regressive taxes. That works too. Especially since in 2018 a cell phone is a necessity for any kind of job worth having.
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no, change the gas tax to a tax on how many wheels the vehicles has.
The problem with that though, is it's not proportionate to how much you drive, the way gas tax is...
Unless you mean charge an additional tax per tire sold? That could be interesting, and also encourages people to get longer wearing tires where people that wanted to splurge a little on higher quality tires would pay a bit more in road tax.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Business groups in the state and wireless carriers are against the proposal
https://thehill.com/policy/tec...
You do realize your state is controlled top to bottom by left wing politicians ?
You're saving a ton of bandwidth vs. making a phone call. How we got into this bizarro land of pretending like texts are some premium feature is beyond me.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
It's pretty obvious the California legislators have not been paying attention. The first thing I thought of when I learned about this tax is the Emanual's plight over in France. Macron's about to get chewed up and tossed out about like the last French royal family. Let them eat cake, er let them use pencil and paper.
{^_^}
Except that you're still adding a new surcharge so there is an instant increase in cost. It's never a wash from the consumer's perspective, only from the tax collectors', and then only after it's been in place.
Besides, the whole point is that, "The report outlines the shrinking revenue coming from a current tax on the telecommunications industry and argues that a new tax on text messaging should be put in place to make up for it", so clearly it won't be a wash because the whole point is extracting more money from consumers. They will notice.
This is about declining number of land line users paying into the utility fee attached to every physical phone line. The Utility commission isn't going to tax you per message, they are going to slap a monthly fee on your cell account. There will be no getting around it. It sucks but it's not going to be a per text sent or received issue. You may continue your blissful ignorance.
Charter Member of The Committee Group For The Elimination And Eradication Of Repetitive Redundancy
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Did I misunderstand when I thought you meant you preferred California-style federal ownership vs Texas individual ownership?
Maybe your emphasis was on "economic growth", your point is that having a big economy is bad?
I would assume so, sense they are talking about the flat fee on the bill for texting. But never assume. If so, there are plenty of different ways to send messages. Not just whatsapp.
The best text messaging apps for Android and iOS
https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/best-text-messaging-apps/
Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
Yay, more taxes!
Your criticism was that Texas has high economic growth, while maintaining personal ownership. If economic growth, twice as much as California, is good, and personal ownership is good, I'm not clear on what your point is.
Were you pointing out some ways Texas is better, with the economy doing twice as well as California, while we retain our property rather than handing it over to the government?
You did it to yourselves, California.
You can fix it.
God help you, but I don't think you're going to.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
But hey, you continue to think that Margaret Sanger's provision of birth control to women in her own Jewish-American neighborhood was racist. After all, women having autonomy over their own bodies is totally discriminatory.
We have no evidence that Sanger was actually racist (certainly her writings and her actions did not reflect that), but she was very classist, and overlapped with eugenicists that the stupid should not reproduce. She believed in forced sterilization for the profoundly retarded and strongly recommended that the reckless and destitute limit their populations, because she believed that environmentally-acquired traits were inherited. Basically, if you were too poor and "reckless" to properly raise healthy children, then those children who lived would grow up to be the same. But she explicitly rejected race and ethnicity as factors.
By the way, no one likes the douche bag that tries to look like they're making peace while putting the person they're talking to into a completely false characterization. If you had any integrity at all this conversation could in fact have ended with "hey, we're opposite ends of the political spectrum and that is what it is". But no, you chose to intentionally miss-characterize what I have been repeatedly saying while trying to look like the "good guy".
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