we were recently made aware that we have to pay into the USF based on our revenue; and that its possible to . We previously were under the impression that voip was still exempt from all taxes and tarrifs. This presents me with possibility that there are other legislations I don't know about.
How many of you guys are collecting USF on your billing and reporting to the FCC?
What measurements are you using to determine what you need to collect? This whole safe hardor 64% thing is confusing the hell out of me and the FCC site implies that this amount can fluctuate every quarter from 6% to 11% or more. It feels like a taxation without representation but I really don't understand the history behind it since obviously I was unaware of its existence until now.
what other fees/taxes are you aware of that have been mandated to get collected by voip providers?
Aside from CALEA and CPNI, are there other legislated requirements of either compliance or regular filings that you are aware of?
well i thought we were in
well i thought we were in the same boat but i was wrong. ALL voip providers have to pay into the USF unless both ends of the call are voip (ie skype). If, at any time, that call ends up on the PSTN, USF fees have to be paid. In fact vonage is sip only (they are the biggest level3 customer of sip only service) but they were court ordered to pay USF. They appealed in every single federal district and lost.
I did learn that if your USF accessment is less than $10k you dont have to pay, but you DO have to file quarterly 499 files with the FCC claiming 'de minimis' status.
are you a CLEC
Eric,
Are you a CLEC..? we talked about it and decided we didn't want to do the route of becoming a CLEC, for a couple reason, one of which was the management of tax's in all the city, counties and states.. I'm sure its a billing nightmare for a small company.
George
the FCC said all voip
the FCC said all voip providers (not CLEC) must file quarterly. The penalties for non-compliance are devastating. If you are selling dialtone, and the caller places a call to another person and any portion of that call touches the PSTN in any way; you have to pay into the USF. Its not a tax, its a scam setup by the ILECs and ratified by congress to get your customers to have to pay the ILEC so they can give free phone service to welfare and foodstamp people (and schools).
the FCC said all voip
I'll do some more checking into it and let you now what I find out..
I did notice on several of our DS3 the USF tax's went up thie last month, I need to get more on top of this BS tax.. don't get me started on whats a tax and what's a tax they call a fund..
a duck by any other name is still a duck..
George
yea it went from 6% to 11%
yea it went from 6% to 11% this quarter. Meanwhile bellsouth has fliers on every low income apartment complex advertising free/reduced phone service if you are on wellfare or get food stamps. The more people they give free service too, the more OUR customers have to pay bellsouth via this fund. Bellsouth isnt giving anything away, they are getting their $45 per person from the government. Fortunately my 11% of my 64% of total revenue is less than $10k annually, so i just have file and claim I am below 10k. But I do have to file. It totally sucks.
yea it went from 6% to 11%
yep just another reason to stay on welfare and food stamps.. here we (not me) provide the homeless bums with free voice mail and an 800 number so they can stay in touch with the other bums, guess who gets to pay for that in the end.. oh yeah BTW its not a tax, its a fund.. blaa...
George
Look on the bright side...
Oh well, the good part is that you don't have to collect & pay all the state PUC fees like you would if you were a CLEC. Sometimes you are also exempt from city fees as well because this is all FCC regulated. Seriously, CLECs have found themselves left out of the VoIP arena, because their CLEC fees make their VoIP pricing non-competitive.
i wish that were true with
i wish that were true with NuVox. they are selling dynamic T-1's here
T-1 Loop
23 channel PRI
IP bandwith
80 DIDs
G729
so that even with all 23 PRI channels in use its still > 768k in IP bandwidth... all for the low low price of $450/mo.
there is no way a non-CLEC can compete with that... my T1 loops are $200 and the wholesale on 768k and 23 channels of a PRI are going to exceed $250. Not to mention the cost of an adtran total access 900 series device over a 36mo contract is yet more expense.
Yeah, but legacy will win with the CLECs
Yeah, that's hard to compete with on a PRI basis, and its always hard to compete when PRI services are offered. I push the service aspect on those. Generally I stay away from them. But there's hardly any CLECs out there deploying IP phone systems with queues and IVRs, so there's the sweet spot.
further info
Anyone have any reference to this online? I need to do some research on this matter
Dont want to get stuck with a year of back taxes because we forgot to file something.
http://www.fcc.gov/fees/facts
http://www.fcc.gov/fees/factsheets/owe-itsp.pdf
start there but the fcc website is where you want to read through.
I'd thought I'd share my FCC horror story for your enjoyment
Sorry to dig this post back up, but it's an additional worthwhile read...
I try to do everything right and legal in early Jan and register with the FCC; haven't switched my first commercial minute of voip yet. I download direct from FCC and submit a paper 2008 499-A, 'cause there isn't a 2009 499-A in January. Nothing is very obvious to tell you that, 'hey dude, 2008 499-A is to only register 2007 traffic, don't start here'. But it does say that you're not supposed to start with a 499-Q. Any help at all is virtually non-existant at the FCC site.
After the paper 2008 499-A was processed, in March, the first thing I run into is USAC, the knee-cap breakers for the FCC who collect all the funds. I get set up with them for online submission, and after multiple login issues, I finally gain access to some crappy site, where I couldn't even figure out what was going on, and buttons didn't even appear in the pdf forms. I email them ('cause I don't have time 7-3 CST to sit on 30m of on-hold), and finally they provide some other URL where at least it is kinda intuitive and things work. Then I got this email in late March about a 2009 499-A and thought, 'hey, I just submitted a 499-A (but it's the 2008, dummy)'.
that was a mistake....
I finally figured it out after they sent me some emails that the 499 was late. I went ahead and downloaded paper 2009 499-A from the FCC, and sent it in, in mid April. I figured, ah, I'm a newbie, they'll be cool about this.
they are not very cool...
So now the bills are showing up with the late penalties for the 2009 499-A form. $100 from NANPA, $100 from USAC and because I made an additional mistake of going on vacation and not seeing USAC's original bill, $100 additional late fee (per month). Plus they tell me there's two or three more vampires that'll be stopping in. Of course, these fees aren't much in the big scheme of a business, but when you're starting out, it can really eat your small bank account. I filed an Appeal to say we're both idiots, but who knows how that'll pan out.
If you are a mid-size or large voip carrier and haven't registered, and been in business for more than a couple of years, doing $100Ks of business and haven't registered or filed, God have mercy on your souls, you poor b....
see what the Family guy has to say about it :)
http://www.ifilm.com/WMPPlaylist?bandwidth=200&ifilmId=2683695&refsite=…
were SIP only and with our DID provider, they take care of paying ALL local, city, state and government screw you because we can taxes..
As a result we offer our customers a flat monthly fee for service + out of LATA LD and toll free usage..
George