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Show NEW LAW TAXING TELEPHONE USERS .opeclal to The Pyramid.) Denver, November 30. The far reaching effects of the European war will be felt in a small way by telephone tele-phone users, according to the announcement an-nouncement made here today by the United States Internal Revenue Department. De-partment. The new federal revenue tax on telephone and telegraph mes sages goes into effect December 1st -all over the country, and a government govern-ment tax of one cent will be collected 'or every message amounting to flf-;een flf-;een cents or over. Officials of The Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph Company ojeratin in the seven mountain states, have been busy for the past month notifying exchanges in all parts of the system of the manner in .vhich this tax is to De collected ana curned over to the government. Notices No-tices have been sent to each of the 250.000 subscribers in the system and placards containing the piov. sions of the new law are to be posted in every pay station. According to the law, all long distance messages amounting to fifteen cents or over are taxed one cent, whether from nrivate phones or pay stations. Toll alls from private telephones will be jounted by the company and taxed in a lump sum on the monthly bill. Pay station customers will be required requir-ed to drop a penny in the coin box of the telephone when their call is made. There will be no tax on local messages where no toll charge Is made. The effects of the new law will be Interesting in this western country, where the number of pennies in circulation cir-culation is proportionately small. According to officals of the United States Mint in Denver, all penies are coined in Philadelphia and shipped through the local mint and sub-treasury for distribution. No shortage of pennies is anticipated, as the banks throughout the country have been supplied in the last few weeks. In some cases, according to the offi- j cials of the telephone company, the cost of collecting the tax from public pay stations will exceed the tax Itself, but the new law is stringent and requires re-quires the collection to be made on every call. |
