2% tax on all communications devices and services

[snopes]

Comment: Hey everyone;

I've never sent out a mass e-mail before, but with the election
approaching, I thought this bore telling.

On Tuesday, Tony and I went to Wal-Mart. We'd had a good show and he has
been suffering under the SLOW speed of dial up out here in the sticks.
So, we went to buy him a $40/month unlimited 3G pay as you go Virgin
wireless broadband device and card.

He comes out of Wal-mart and I look at the receipt. I see the usual
Texas 8.25% sales tax and another new 2% tax. I pointed it out to Tony
and ask him, "What the hell is this?" Well he marched back in to Wal-Mart
and asked a sales person the same question. He was told it's one of the
new Obama taxes. All purchases of communications devices or services now
have an additional 2% tax on them. ALL OF THEM. Did any of you vote on
this?

Think about this in a couple of weeks when you do go to vote.

[Natalie]

Assuming cell phones and internet count as communcations services, Minnesota must have gotten an exemption. I haven't seen any extra taxes on my internet or cell phone bill.

[diddy]

Originally Posted by Natalie

Assuming cell phones and internet count as communcations services, Minnesota must have gotten an exemption. I haven't seen any extra taxes on my internet or cell phone bill.

Me too - my guess is that this tax is probably on the state level. My question is that how could this be applied at the retailer level? I can understand getting this tacked onto the monthly bill, but not at the retail level at Walmart or such. Any sort of tax on specific devices would be factored into the cost of the item itself and not appear as a separate line item. Alcohol is taxed separately aside from sales tax, but the local liquor store doesn’t have a separate line item for it - it is factored into the price on the shelf.

[Simply Madeline]

I've never sent out a mass e-mail before, but with the election approaching, I thought this bore telling.

Well, s/he's right, her/his telling was quite a bore.

[Johnny Slick]

Communications are kind of a weird thing. Virtually every single zip code has a different tax rate, as the city, county, state, and even to some extent federal governments all want their piece of the pie (although in fairness the federal universal surcharge a. isn't even technically a tax but the telecom carriers have been allowed to charge it to peoples' accounts as such and b. it's pretty tiny). Why this is President Obama's fault and not, I don't know, Theodore Roosevelt's is beyond me though.

[Natalie]

Theodore Roosevelt wasn't a seekrit muslin?




Yeah, I don't know either.

[Not_Done_Living]

In Ontario. we have an "environmental" or "recycling" tax placed on any electronics device we purchase, TV, Video game or Cell Phone.

It may be something like that.