I have all my old bills for all my phone lines. Can anyone tell me which of the federal taxes are to be included in the refund? My carrier is Verizon I have for federal taxes: Federal subscriber line charge Federal universal service fee Federal universal service fee long distance Federal excise tax
The 3% federal excise tax on long distance charges. Why not just take the IRS safe harbor amounts of $30, $40, $50 or $60 based on 1, 2, 3 or 4 or more people on the return?
The federal excise tax is what is being refunded.
The universal service fee is not a tax. It is a fee that the phone company has to pay. They are allowed to pass it on to the customer, but are not required to do so. Verizon (and probably every other carrier) chooses to bill you for it. They try to make it look like a tax so that you won't complain. Bob Sandler
Take a look at the form 8913 before you get too excited. I doubt the time to complete the form is worth the small, if any, extra refund above the "standard amount". And if you use the 8913 for any phone you must use it for every phone - separate forms for each phone. The "standard amount" covers all phones. Larry McClellan
FWIW, I just looked through a few month's worth of (old) bills -- it comes out to around $2/month for me (Verizon flat rate plan along with two cell phones).
And before you get too excited about that, remember that we're talking ONLY about federal excise tax on long distance service. This does not pertain to federal excise tax on local service. ChEAr$, Harlan Lunsford, EA n LA
One of my clients audits phone bills for overcharges. She just got a federal excise tax refund for a national company that you've heard of, of just under $175,000. Stu
That's intresting. I went through my bills for the whole time period. Even during tax season three years ago when I was calling Memphis every day to efile returns, the total tax on long distance one of those months never was more than
80cents, and of course besides those "heavy" months of Feb and March, rest of year might have averaged 12 cents per month. And many of those calls were on state society business for which I got reimbursed. Even for local clients who almost never make long distance calls, I'm not even going to suggest they go back and do the figures. ChEAr$, Harlan Lunsford, EA n LA
Actually, that is federal excise tax on long distance or federal excise tax on bundled services, such as a cell phone plan which does not separate local and long-distance calls. Plus you get interest for the back taxes. I did the calculations for my phone usage -- land line with separate long distance back in the early months, then two cell phones for the second half of the credit period. My refund came out to $80 and the standard amount would only be $50. If you have a client with multiple cell phones, you could easily have a significant refund due.
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