Left In Lowell

Telecom Tax Loophole (Almost) Closed

17 Responses to “Telecom Tax Loophole (Almost) Closed”

1. Jackie Says:
   March 4th, 2008 at 9:53 am

   This is great news. My understanding is that Massachusetts is one of the few states that don’t tax telecommunication companies for poles and wires in public ways. I’d say it’s about time!

2. Shawn Says:
   March 4th, 2008 at 12:26 pm

   Is the tax doubled for every double pole????

3. Michael in NH and Pawtucket Says:
   March 4th, 2008 at 2:57 pm

   Everytime this happens, I get a notice from Verizon saying that due to this or that tax or this or that fee or to recover this or that, they’re going to ding my 39 cents or five bucks or whatever per month. Which is why I don’t have a land-line at my place in Lowell. But I do have dryloop DSL. If there were a cheap internet service that didn’t get fee’d and fined to death, and squeezed all over the place for corporate profits, I’d sign up.

4. waittilnextyr Says:
   March 5th, 2008 at 9:07 am

   In a strange twist, the DOR actually took the side of the Telecoms in this case, arguing that the law must be changed (which it has not, as yet). The Telecoms are appealing, the DOR is not. The Legislature could put this to bed by changing the law, although that may not allow retroactive recupement of taxes. Apparently Billerica is the only local community that joined the case early, so Lowell is unlikely to see any retroactive taxes out of this. In any case, don’t count those chickens until the appeal is heard or the law has been changed. And even then, do we really expect that our Telecom bills will be unchanged? It appears that it will be nothing more than shifting money around and the Telecoms will be the vehicle to get it from us to the cities and towns.

5. Shawn Says:
   March 5th, 2008 at 10:08 am

   Ah.. but you can dump verizon (or not buy their service).

   The towns, however, have been stuck with the untaxable property for years. It’ll be good to get this on the rolls.. and maybe get the legislature to allow us some leverage with regard to double/damaged and inappropriately located poles.

6. Josh Says:
   March 5th, 2008 at 11:55 am

   Oh my God… we had something go untaxed in this state!? It’s madness!

   Does this mean that we can finally roll back the income tax since we will be swimming in new revenues?

7. Lynne Says:
   March 5th, 2008 at 1:56 pm

   Josh: Stop perpetrating the myth (yes, myth) that Mass is highly taxed. We are not. We’re quite low in the tax burden categories. Our corporate tax rate is the third or fifth lowest if I recall, depending on the way you measure. So give it a rest. It’s fine if you think that even the level we do have is too much, but don’t pretend that it’s more than it is to begin with, that’s disingenuous.

8. Michael in Pawtucketville Says:
   March 5th, 2008 at 8:16 pm

   Verizon has an effective monopoly with DSL. The alternative is Comcast which has a monopoly on the 98% of homes that don’t have access to DSL. So I guess that’s a duopoly.

   As far as taxes go, MA is high from my perspective but that’s from NH. People complain about NH property taxes but they have the choice of buying a smaller house.

9. Josh Says:
   March 6th, 2008 at 12:14 am

   http://www.census.gov/govs/statetax/05staxrank.html

   According to that far rightwing think tank known as the “census bureau” Massachusetts ranks 11th in total taxes and 7th in total tax per capita (where a higher rank means higher taxes). It’s hardly a myth…

10. K-R-S Says:
    March 6th, 2008 at 6:45 am

    Funny! ( Josh’s comment)…;0)

11. Mr. Lynne Says:
    March 6th, 2008 at 9:17 am

    The measure that should be considered is overall taxation, not just the state taxes. Also… the measure of tax per capita in isolation of income data is also misleading. The richest state in terms of personal income could have a lower tax rate and still wind up higher than most states in per capita amounts, such as the statistic you cite. In isolation it is difficult to draw conclusions from your citation. Being taxed high amounts does not equate to unfair taxation, especially if the high amounts are due to higher income and a stronger economy.

12. Josh Says:
    March 6th, 2008 at 1:33 pm

    It’s true that per capita taxes is not the best measure, but it one looks at the tax burden measured by the total effective tax rate then Massachusetts still ranks 7th (again where high rank means high taxes).

    http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/335.html
    Admittedly this one is from the Tax Foundation but uses data from the BEA.

13. Mr. Lynne Says:
    March 6th, 2008 at 2:20 pm

    OK… looking at the taxfoundation data:

    First the obvious questions. What are they measuring? What’s included? There’s nothing in there about methodology. Percentage of what taxes vs what incomes?

    Lets assume that it refers to individual tax burden percentages vs income. Lets further assume (being generous) that they include all income and investment income, and investment assets. Before Federal taxes we are in the middle of the pack. With Federal taxes included we are 7th worst relatively. Clearly the federal component is a driver.

    Now, can we conclude that the Federal component’s resultant overall tax burden rate represent an unfair tax burden relative to other states? Of course not. If I live in a state with relatively wealthy individuals, I’d expect a bigger tax burden based on the progressive graduated nature of income taxes. Furthermore, the richer the populous, the more likely individuals are to have investments and with larger amounts. A poor person is taxes less per unit of income. Large incomes result in larger percentages of taxation.

    Of course there is also the political nature of the federal component. Note that MA’s best years according to those data were during the Democratically controlled legislature years of the mid to late 80’s to early 90’s. Even through Reagan and Bush years. Having the speakership in MA’s delegation probably helped of course.

14. Shawn Says:
    March 6th, 2008 at 2:36 pm

    Until you can find a way to eliminate federal taxes (I’ll go along with that), I’ll agree with Josh on this one.

    But I’m sure that doesn’t surprise ya’ll.

    (reminds me, I gotta get them taxes done).

15. Mr. Lynne Says:
    March 6th, 2008 at 2:40 pm

    So State and Locally, you figure MA is middle of the road burden-wise then?

16. tim Says:
    March 7th, 2008 at 8:43 am

    That is how I interpret that data.

    As for this example - seems like just the thing that should be taxed: a private company using public land for profit, in a way that prevents other uses of that land (trees, wider roads).

    It also seems fine to me if they pass the cost along to the customer. Sure, as a customer I’d rather they didn’t, but at least it would reflect the true cost more closely.

17. Michael in NH and Pawtucket Says:
    March 7th, 2008 at 2:34 pm

    They made $5.5 billion in 2007. When I see these fees, fines, recovery charges, etc. I get the feeling that they’re just using something that may or may not exist as a way to pad their bottom line. Pass the cost off to the consumer. I think that they do more than that and all of these little fees and taxes gives them more opportunity to do so. It never gets taken out of the bottom line.

    We need WiMax badly so we can eliminate the wires for telecommunications, the inefficiencies and the costs.

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