Overview

WITS2001 Taxing and Pass Through Charges

The Federal Government is exempt from Federal Excise Tax, State Sales Tax, Local Sales Tax, and Local Excise Tax. Foo

Gross Receipts Tax Surcharge
No CLINs assigned, appears as text after each line.

The Gross Receipts Tax Surcharge is classified as a tax. The state of Maryland and the District of Columbia receives an operational fee from all utility companies that covers the cost of doing business in a particular jurisdiction. Arrangements were made that allowed the utility companies to pass this charge along to their customers.

Therefore, the Gross Receipts Tax Surcharge is the operational fee collected for your account. The fee is calculated on certain items of the basic local service charges, all value added services, calls completed by the operator and message units.

Local Gross Receipts Surcharge
No CLINs assigned, appears as text after each line.

There are certain products that are only taxable in certain counties. The charges as set forth by the county are collected by the local telephone company and remitted to the respective county. In Service@once there is an attribute called a TAR code. This TAR code corresponds to a county. The TAR code in combination with the ZIP code is passed to Bill@once. This combination of ZIP and TAR codes is the driver that calculates taxes and passthroughs for counties and cities with their special taxing considerations.

Taxable cities/counties are:

Virginia Arlington County Winchester City Richmond City Norfolk City Portsmouth City Roanoke City

Maryland Montgomery County Anne Arundel County

Description of Surcharge
Since its inception in the 1930's, the FCC has maintained a policy of promoting affordable telephone service to all Americans.

After the break up of AT&T in the early 1980's, the FCC established a mechanism to ensure that the rates of local telephone companies would remain affordable to customers. All telephone companies that provide telephone service between states contribute to the Federal Universal Service Fund.

Under a new FCC approved plan, effective July 1, 2000, local telephone companies are allowed to recover the cost of their Federal Universal Service Fund contribution in a competitively neutral manner by billing a monthly line charge.

Description of Surcharge
The FCC instituted the monthly line charge, Subscriber Line Charge (SLC), to help pay some of the fixed costs the local phone company incurs in providing long distance companies with access to their local networks. It is intended to cover portions of the interstate costs of providing the local customer with access to the long distance carrier for all classes of customers, which should ultimately lead to lower long distance rates.

Description of Surcharge
In 1996, the Washington, D.C. legislature authorized a Right-of-Way Fee, and legislation that year established the rates that would be charged by the DC Government to utility companies in Washington. The 1996 law reads; "Each public utility company regulated by the Public Service Commission shall recover from its utility customers all lease payments which it pays to the District of Columbia pursuant to this title through a surcharge mechanism applied to each unit of sale and the surcharge amount shall be separately stated on each customer's monthly billing statement." A "unit of sale" refers to a telephone line.

In 1998 the Virginia General Assembly passed the same law authorizing a Right-of-Way Fee.

Description of Surcharge
The Line Port Charge applies to DID ISDN BRI and PRI.

The charge is for additional equipment that has to be installed in the local network for the signals of the above services to be recognized and transmitted. The FCC required the cost of this new, more advanced equipment for these newer services to be recovered in a separate charge and to be paid by the customer. The FCC did not consider it fair that all telephone users pay for these costs. The shift in cost recovery will also be offset by reductions in the local exchange carriers per minute of use charge to the interstate long distance carriers.

Description of Surcharge
The purpose of the surcharge is to provide funding for a Dual Party Relay Service System in Maryland. The surcharge was implemented July 1, 1991.

A Dual Party Relay Service System enables hearing and speech impaired people to communicate with those of normal speech and hearing over the telephone by using an attendant relay system.

Description of Surcharge
A tax collected for each individual telephone line sold or leased in the District of Columbia to fund the emergency and non-emergency number telephone system.