OCR Text |
Show Late Christmas Gift Comes in Phone Tax Reduction in Region There's a Christmas present of sorts for telephone users this year. On Jan. 1 the federal excise tax on telephone service will drop from 2 percent to 1 percent, the South Central Utah Telephone Association, Inc. announced. But the tax won't disappear entirely at the end of the year, as Congress voted several years ago. This year's tax bill postpones that, keeping it 1 percent until Jan. 1, 1985. Next year's drop will save telephone customers approximately $516 million, according to estimates by the U.S. Independent Telephone Association. Some $116 million of the amount will be saved by customers of the Independent telephone companies. The association represents the interests of the nation's 1,500 non-Bell System telephone companies serving more than 36 million phones One out of every five in the nation. The telephone tax was imposed by Congress during World War I as a "temporary" measure. Although briefly after the war, it was reinstated during the Depression and at one time rates were as high as 25 percent on long distance calls and 15 percent on local service. Several years ago Congress voted to gradually eliminate the tax, which had stood at 10 percent for almost 20 years. In recent years it has dropped 1 percent each year and was scheduled to be eliminated at the end of 1982. However, legislation enacted in 1980 continued the tax at 2 percent through 1981. The latest bill allows the decrease to 1 -percent in 1982 but continues it at that rate through 1984. |