[100920] in North American Network Operators' Group
San Jose UUT?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Mark Kent)
Thu Nov 22 13:38:05 2007
Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2007 10:30:26 -0800 (PST)
From: Mark Kent <mark@noc.mainstreet.net>
To: nanog@merit.edu
Errors-To: owner-nanog@merit.edu
Looking to fill the NANOG US Thanksgiving void
(as a Canadian in the USA, I have some spare time):
In San Jose, an upstream is charging us this 5% tax:
http://www2.csjfinance.org/UUT.asp
I think it's bogus, because the tax "applies to intrastate telephone
communications only" and, consistent with the long-standing FCC 128
tariff, Internet circuits are regarded has being interstate and not
intrastate.
But the upstream says:
>> Our tax advisors at Deloitte have confirmed that we are required to
>> charge the San Jose User Utility Tax shown on your invoice.
>> The Internet Tax Freedom Act exemption is not applicable to our
>> services as this exemption is for internet access only, not
>> bandwidth usage.
I think the last sentence is not relevant, but even if it
is relevant, is it correct? I note that wikipedia says:
>> This law bars federal, state and local governments from taxing
>> Internet access and from imposing discriminatory Internet-only
>> taxes such as bit taxes, BANDWIDTH TAXES, and email taxes.
I know, IANAL, YANAL, Wiki is not a lawyer... but I figure someone
else must have previously dealt with this (or something very close).
Thanks,
-mark