Text messages might be next to face California tax, reports say
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
California state regulators have been working on a plan to charge mobile phone users a text messaging fee intended to fund programs that make phone service accessible to the low-income residents, reports said Tuesday.
The California Public Utilities Commission is scheduled to vote on the proposal next month, but critics have already come out against the scheme, the San Jose Mercury News reported.
“It’s a dumb idea,” Jim Wunderman, president of the Bay Area Council business group, told the paper. “This is how conversations take place in this day and age, and it’s almost like saying there should be a tax on the conversations we have.”
While the amount consumers would be expected to pay remained unclear, some business groups are saying the new charges could cost wireless users more than $44 million a year, FOX11 Los Angeles reported.
Charges may also be applied retroactively to messages sent in the past five years, which has raised questions concerning the proposal’s legality, Rufus Jeffress, vice president of the Bay Area Council, told the San Francisco Bay Area's KNTV-TV . The “alarming precedent” could chalk up to a bill of more than $220 million for consumers, the Mercury News reported.
The wireless industry argues that the fees would put carriers at a disadvantage since competing messaging services like Facebook’s Messenger and WhatsApp would not be charged the new fees, FOX11 reported.
Those against the proposal said that wireless customers already pay into the state’s Public Purpose Programs, which they call “healthy and well-funded” with nearly $1 billion in its budget, the Mercury News reported. But state regulators disagree, saying the budget has increased more than $300 million over six years, KNTV reported.
Residents lamented the potential tax, calling it “dumb” and “unfair.”
“To have them charge us something else is just dumb,” a Bay Area resident told KNTV. “I think it’s very unfair, especially for the people that can barely pay for their cell phone plan already.”
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Welcome to the liberal/socialist utopia.
This article is moot. It can't be done as texting is a form of communication the same as a letter or a conversation. If a letter or a conversation can not be taxed, texting can not either. It has been shot down already.
Moot point to bitch about what could have been.
broken link , but I did read one saying similar on my newsfeed , seems the FCC stepped in and made a determination that put the kibosh on this.
Thanks Mark, I fixed it, lol...
No way this would have any support even if it was a possibility. And if it did pass? The people that passed it would be out of office before they could say, "oh shit".
Also...not a liberal/socialist utopia, it's actually called capitalism.
Trump is a socialist, so you may want to back off the whole, "socialism is bad" horse crap. No? One of the core beliefs of socialism is government controlling private business. Who tried to bail out carrier? Trump. Who told NFL owners they should fire players that don't stand for the National Anthem? Trump. Who imposed tariffs on imported goods for many companies including Harley Davidson, which caused those business's to lose hundreds of millions of dollars? Trump.
You're welcome.
Interesting how, after 3 comments pointing out that the text tax isn't going to happen, they still come on here with their laughing emojis. It's almost like the facts don't exist at all to them. Could be a good topic for a psychiatric essay.
WTF? SERIOUSLY?
Capitalism is when Verizon or ATT or whatever company YOU VOLUNTARILY AGREED TO, charges you for their sevices. Socialism is when the government TAXES/Adds fees to said service WITHOUT YOUR CONSENT to pay for poor folk's texting. No frigging wonder you hate capitalism. I would hate it if your COMPLETELY MISGUIDED definition of it were correct too... good thing it is complete misguided poo poo...
I only pointed out that it was shot down already. What do laughing emojis here have to do with the topic anyway?
Only in the leftist liberal fantasy land of Californicationia could something so ridiculous be taken so seriously!
I live here and thought is was a stupid idea and was against it. Nothing is happening with it. Red states should be so lucky, California is a great state. Of course we have problems to deal with. But taxing texts won't be part of it. Our state is in surplus now anyway. Stupid idea went nowhere.
It would have if the feds hadnntmade it illegal to do so. I think they would tax your breathing if they could figure out how to get an accurate account of how much air you take in.
I live in a state that values all its residents, and that includes setting up good health exchanges, for example, which your state does not. We now have no deficit and a rainy day fund, thanks Gov Brown. There are problems, but I thank god I got to spend so much of my life here. I couldn't live in a state that bends towards christian sharia, and that doesn't care about its residents.
That is so rich coming from a Texan. Check yourself, man. Your citizen's are at risk, mind them. Texas has a very high rate of uninsured and their death rates are much higher than ours. Actually most of the red states do. I know Texas likes to think its the biggest and best, but it will never catch up with the California economy!
Gonna be a shitload of pissed off parents when they see their kids texting bills in Cali .....
Seeing that the FCC shot this stupid idea down on December 12, 2018
this seed is as William Shakespeare wrote, "Much ado about nothing"
I already went through that back around 2002, and it sucked. But this stupid text taxing idea isn't going anywhere, so Californians won't have to deal with it. Republicans are the ones who push stupid ideas into law before they understand the consequences.
Every time I see this.....I LMAO !
California deserves itself !
As your state does you.
Why don't they just go ahead and go full communist already? It's the direction they're headed anyway?
Headed???
I think most kids use other means - like FB chat, Instagram, etc. This tax will just killl texting fees as everyone will go to a different means to talk. But what does it say when a government spends its time just trying to imagine new ways to tax their citizens? Then again, it's California, not sure they care about current citizens in the least.
they are certainly smart enough to figure out when app will circumvent the tax but apparently CA democrats are still stupid enough to push for it.
This wins. This is the dumbest idea I've heard this month.
This is actually a tax on young people, people of color, and the poor generally. People under 25 are FAR and away the most prolific texters. African Americans text more than whites, and the poor text more than the wealthy.
How Americans Use Text Messaging
Impossible.
The straw ban is designed so that the poor are fined as well. Go figure.
We don't need plastic straws, some places have gone back to paper, you know, like we used to do back in the day. BFD, help the environment instead of damaging it. You like watching a poor turtle getting a plastic straw removed from his nostril?
not a chance that stands up in court... they have gone full retard.
I wouldn't be so sure. They have already passed several retarded laws and have the 9th district court of retardation on their side
You will probably see the rare GOP-ACLU alliance occur over this should it pass, since California is essentially trying to pass a tax on free speech.
It's not "free speech" since you pay for the service it isn't free, and even if they did proceed (which they already dropped the effort) your ability to speak would not be stifled, just more expensive.
Studiusbagus, I was presenting what I would believe would be the argument against the text message tax. Text messages are already taxed as part of the utility taxes already in place. This is a tax on top of that utility tax that focuses on just text messages, so looking that way upon it, the argument does present itself as being a tax on free speech.
Nice try. But still you tried to say it was a violation of free speech in which there was no basis. You paid to speak and nobody was infringing on that right.
Yes, the phone charges include utility taxes as well as 911 taxes. They wanted to tax the texts which is seperate...but the FCC slapped them around.
I'm not in favor of what they tried but trying to drag " free speech" in there didn't apply.
Keep telling yourself that. My point was if this went through the GOP and the ACLU would have an alliance, and if you can't figure out the fact that the ACLU sues over free speech for just about everything, then you really need to stop sleeping so often.
So, "if" and copping out to blame the ACLU is your educated response?
In other words, you painted youself in a corner and now trying to deflect and shift. As long as the right can blame others for their own bullshit it's okay.
How much of a contortionist are you? I stated known facts about the ACLU that are common knowledge and predicted what would have happened over the text message proposal, and you call that copping out?
Let's see...
You post an opinion, not a fact:
And then use your psychic abilities:
And you call me a contortionist...that's funny!
That is correct. When a government taxes something in order to "spread the wealth" that is called Socialism.
It is properly called redistribution of wealth. The system that comes closest to this is called social democracy - highly regulated capitalist economic engine funding public services.
[deleted]
To those dissing us here in CA, like your state is any better when it comes to certain things.
Fact is that CA brings the majority of it upon itself, and yes I will take my home state of Arizona, even with it's faults, over CA any day. I lived in CA for years when I was in the military and was never so glad to leave someplace.
Why yes, yes it is.
But the subject is the ridiculousness of California law proposals. But hey if your Democratic congressmen have their way, Ted Lieu, he would love to regulate your free speech to complain about it.
Hahahaha!
"Never go full retard" that's funny...
California dropped it hours before this post.
they would tax farts if they could figure out how to do it
from 2016
cant say they didn't try , and I want to meet the person that has to install the equipment , they have a real shitty job.....
I don't know much about that case. I know it was tried on cows but because of the massive amount of land a cow takes up it got too expensive but pig farms now have methane digesters that power generators that run the whole farm.
About 10 years ago North Florida Holsteins, the largest single milking parlos east of the mississippi was trying it on their farm but I don't know how it panned out.
LOL , well I was being a bit laconic , maybe borderline sarcastic , but I don't think that would work too well up here in Wyoming , maybe could , but the phrase catching a fart in the Wyoming wind comes to mind.....the wind stopped once here in Wyoming , we all fell down....
LOL here in Florida if the breeze passes 30 mph Home Depot gets cleaned out of lumber and duct tape.
This is nothing but a big giant "SQUIRELL!!!!" coming from Faux Snooze. There is simply ZERO chance of this happening in California or anywhere else for that matter. This entire story is based on a commission who hasn't even made the proposal yet but, like any commission, votes first on what to even hear proposals for. That's what this is, a vote on whether to hear a proposal that is going to get laughed out of the building.
If you got heated or upset debating this, just remember, you just got Fox-trolled. I'm almost surprised it didn't end the article with "Never Gonna Give You up!"...
Thing is dismayed , they COULD have gotten away with it if it was worded properly.
from my understanding part of the reason this came about was because people are ditching their landlines which have the built in improvement fees for service , the same is not true for cellular ( to include texting) service. remember this is my understanding.
so to recoup the funds generated by landlines being lost, they discussed how they could have done it to cellular services and what they offer. thing is they called it a TAX. if they had called it an area coverage service fee, since the government controls and owns the rights to the radio waves( which cellular use) and they lease out by lic, they could have gotten away with it to an extent.
People might not have liked it and complained , but under that scenario, it was doable from even a state government perspective. Just increase the area service fee.
I agree the words used allowed Fox to turn this into a scary headline getting their conservative Republican readers to shake their heads as they feel their view of crazy liberals and California are reinforced and validated by such misrepresented "fake" news.
There simply is no chance of a "per text" service fee or "tax" since it would then give the many other different methods of communication a financial edge over texting and texting would just disappear being replaced by something similar but isn't taxed.
I think it's far more likely the proposal will be something more like what you mention, an increase of area service fees based on the total amount of text traffic, so if an area has 10 million texts a day being transmitted that area will have a substantially higher service fee than an area that fields just 1 million texts a day, but the idea that individuals will be assessed a per text tax is pure fiction used by Fox News to troll stupid people, aka their viewers and readers.
Yea that is what it says and
That's what they said about the straw ban and sanctuary cities too, but here we are.
Who said that? I'd never heard of people wanting to ban straws until it was already a proposal in some cities. And most big cities have always essentially acted as "sanctuary cities" because of cost, not any political stance. The cities chose to not spend money paying their officers to work two jobs, keeping streets safe and enforcing federal immigration laws which is ICE's job. It was only given a name when some conservatives began demanding those cities do their job for them without pay. Should the police check the financial status and investigate whether every drunk driver they pick up has paid their federal income taxes? Do they run a tax audit on them for the federal government to make sure they're not breaking any other laws? Of course not, that would be ridiculous, but you don't call those cities who don't have their officers doing that "Tax shelter" cities, do you?
That is total bullshit and you know it. Sactuary cities PROHIBIT cops from doing their jobs and keeping people safe.
"The term sanctuary has no uniform legal meaning, but in general it refers to integrationist policies—that is, policies that serve to integrate immigrants regardless of their status. So called “sanctuary” laws might include prohibition of use of county funds to initiate an inquiry or enforcement based solely on immigration status , or the refusal to hold ICE detainees (in county jails, for instance, until ICE arrives), or the refusal to let ICE agents into public spaces without a judicial warrant . So, it can take many forms. But it is not a protective blanket that prevents ICE from doing its work . They can do their job, but it’s a matter of how much assistance they get from localities."
"Major cities like San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Baltimore and Boston are sanctuary cities. Interestingly, New York had sanctuary policies even under former mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani , now an adviser to Trump’s campaign.
ICE can issue an “immigration detainer,” a request to be notified when a “criminal alien” (a noncitizen convicted of a crime) is being released from a state or local law enforcement agency. This is so ICE can take custody of such people when they’re released and figure out whether they’re subject to deportation."
Reluctance among local and state agencies grew after a DHS program failed to prioritize deportation of convicted immigrants, and state and local governments saw it as a drain on their resources . With many local and state agencies strapped for cash, they declined to cooperate in what is ultimately a federal responsibility .
Local and state governments can decide not to participate in federal immigration enforcement — which ultimately is a federal responsibility."
So the facts simply do not support your hypothesis. There simply is NO difference between a cop checking an arrestees federal income tax status to make sure they're "legal" and then referring the tax cheats to the IRS and cops checking the immigration status of an arrestee and referring them to ICE instead of simply focusing on whatever law might have been broken that got them arrested. And if they're acquitted of the crime they were arrested for, the cops have no reason to keep holding them for ICE.
We have many cities now where the State law differs from federal law when it comes to marijuana. Should all local cops in Colorado or California detain pot smokers to turn them over to the DEA? So that means we are also marijuana sanctuary cities.
Why do the cops say it prohibits them from doing their jobs? Oh wait you completely ignored what the people trying to do their jobs told you didn't you?
Have you heard any news on how the manhunt is going for the illegal alien cop killer in CA? Or WHY he is here?
text message tax? the FCC said NOT Happening...
cheers