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Apr. 17, 2008

Congress should legislate a 5-year freeze on all new wireless taxes.

That is the recommendation of U.S. Reps. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and Chris Cannon (R-UT) in a new bill called the Cell Tax Fairness Act.

The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association's (CTIA) Chairman and Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam said "rather than just freezing any new taxes, policymakers should roll back taxes.

Overall, about 15 percent of customer bills are already devoted to taxes, McAdam said.

The Congress' new initiative received strong support from the CTIA yesterday.

“Keeping wireless taxes at a fair and reasonable level is critical to growing the economy and making the workforce more productive, efficient and informed,” said CTIA CEO and President Steve Largent.

"We should do everything in our power to remove the roadblocks – such as excessive, discriminatory wireless taxes – that stand in the way of progress, and the Cell Tax Fairness legislation introduced yesterday in the House is a positive step in the right direction,” said Largent.

Similar support came yesterday from MyWireless.org, described on its Website as “a national non-profit consumer advocacy organization offering wireless consumers a powerful and unified voice to protect the freedom and security they enjoy with wireless services” – although the group was founded by and is controlled by the CTIA.

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Source: C.N.T.