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amarryat
Verizon FiOS
join:2005-05-02
Marshfield, MA

amarryat

Member

Property tax clarification

"For example, the company hasn't paid property tax in Massachusetts since a 1915 law was passed to help speed up phone service deployment. The state recently tried to remove the law, only to have Verizon hold back infrastructure upgrades (Boston doesn't get FiOS)."

Yes this is true. The Massachusetts legislature wanted to tax the circular property area occupied by each telephone pole.

Gives a whole new meaning to the pole tax.

Maybe they should also charge the water company, gas company, etc. for the areas occupied by their pipes.

IowaCowboy
Lost in the Supermarket
Premium Member
join:2010-10-16
Springfield, MA

IowaCowboy

Premium Member

said by amarryat:

Maybe they should also charge the water company, gas company, etc. for the areas occupied by their pipes.

Not to mention the government owns many utilities like the Springfield Water & Sewer Commission, Chicopee Electric Light Department, Westfield Gas & Electric, and Holyoke Gas & Electric.

I am starting to wonder if our tax dollars are subsidizing these utilities. And you have fewer rights with municipal utilities than you do with investor owned utilities such as billing and shut-off rights.
Paxio
Premium Member
join:2011-02-23
Santa Clara, CA

Paxio to amarryat

Premium Member

to amarryat
Actually, we do pay tax on every single fiber we pay to put in the ground or on a pole, every year. It seems pretty counter-productive to me, and not a great incentive to spend the money needed to bring fiber to more people. Because taxes vary so much from place to place we recently had to add property taxes as a separate item on our bill -- our first and only "below the line" item on our bill.

Taxes are a hidden drain on the economy that saps its productive juices. Tax policy is used as a tool for politicians to reward their cronies and give advantages to some companies (e.g. Solyndra, G.E., and AT&T) over others.

amarryat
Verizon FiOS
join:2005-05-02
Marshfield, MA

2 recommendations

amarryat

Member

Instead of taxing corporations, the govt. ought to tax us directly. Either way, we're going to pay. Charging Verizon a property tax on poles will be reflected by a rate increase.

The bottom line is that those in govt. want more money, and are constantly dreaming up ways to fool all of us into paying more. A tax on a corporation is a tax on all of us.

FFH5
Premium Member
join:2002-03-03
Tavistock NJ

FFH5

Premium Member

said by amarryat:

Instead of taxing corporations, the govt. ought to tax us directly. Either way, we're going to pay. Charging Verizon a property tax on poles will be reflected by a rate increase.

The bottom line is that those in govt. want more money, and are constantly dreaming up ways to fool all of us into paying more. A tax on a corporation is a tax on all of us.

Exactly. The whole tax structure is set up to fool as many people as possible, so that they don't realize the extent that the government is dominating the economy thru taxes that are often hidden from the citizens.