priller
join:2000-10-20
Gainesville, VA
 ·voip.ms
·Callcentric
·Vonage
·callwithus
| Tax and Fees Now 15% of the bill
Yikes, new fees/taxes added this month. That's now 15% of the total monthly bill. Gov't out of control. Not much value in Vonage anymore .... guess that was the whole idea, wasn't it? |
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christcorp
Premium
join:2001-05-21
Cheyenne, WY
 ·Bresnan Online
·VOIPo
| Well, I guess you can get your business phone and long distance for it for less than $47. What are you waiting for? Why is this even a discussion? If Ma'Bell or an independent phone provider can give you the same business phone plan for under $47, you should definitely be there. Later... Mike... |
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Da Geek Kid
join:2003-10-11
Mclean, VA | reply to priller
we should all thank our VA senators and Congressman for that because they added the recent Internet TAX bill.... |
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priller
join:2000-10-20
Gainesville, VA
·voip.ms
·Callcentric
·Vonage
·callwithus
1 edit | reply to christcorp
said by christcorp  :Well, I guess you can get your business phone and long distance for it for less than $47. What are you waiting for? Why is this even a discussion? It's not the price of the overall service. It's the fact that the gov't fees and taxes add 15% to the cost of a given product/service. That same 15% is being added to a residential plan.
THAT'S THE DISCUSSION! |
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christcorp
Premium
join:2001-05-21
Cheyenne, WY
·Bresnan Online
·VOIPo
| I agree. But with my Ma'Bell service, there were almost 25% in fees and taxes. Service with 3 features and no long distance was $29 a month. With taxes and fees, it came to about $38 a month. That was just for residential plus USF, 911, tax, and everything else they could think of.
As soon as customers demanded voip to have the features, quality, and reliability of POTS, Ma'Bell was determined to get the government to treat voip the same as it did Ma'Bell. Can't blame Ma'bell for pushing the government for that. It's only smart business to make sure your competition is forced to play by the same rules.
Everyone who is thinking of coming to Voip from POTS might as well be told right now to look at their current Ma'Bell and figure out what fees they are being charged on top of the actual phone bill. They will, or soon will, be charged all of these on their voip bill. Voip however can still be cheaper and worth it because of the long distance, features, and portability factor of the technology over Ma'Bell. None of this can be blames on the voip providers. Later... mike... |
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priller
join:2000-10-20
Gainesville, VA | Guess I just miss the good ol days when VoIP was under the radar!  |
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Da Geek Kid
join:2003-10-11
Mclean, VA | reply to priller
The crap they try to feed you is: "Sir, you will notice a fee reduction in your cable and phone bills"... I say BS... |
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Da Geek Kid
join:2003-10-11
Mclean, VA
| reply to priller
said by priller :Guess I just miss the good ol days when VoIP was under the radar! this is not just VoIP issue, I see this on my satellite, VoIP, and Sirius(thank God I paid that off) as well as any other communication you could ever imagine... |
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justDave
join:2000-02-29
Brooklyn, NY | Re: Tax and Fees Now (only) 15% of the bill
Only 15%? Consider yourselves lucky. At Viatalk, unlimited residential is $99/yr which is $8.25. They add $2.50/mo in taxes - that's a whopping 30%! |
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B
Premium,MVM
join:2000-10-28
| Once again, all of those charges are phony. There is no mandate that they be itemized and billed separately. They are a cost of doing business, and these providers have CHOSEN to bill you in this fashion, not much different than if they chose to bill you a line item for their office air conditioning or paper clips.
That is, at least as far as I understand...
-- B
P.S. It's sad to see how Vonage continues to lead the way with new phony fees. "State Communications Service Tax"??
--
In a realm outside causality and function |
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ryan22030
join:2007-01-21
Fairfax, VA | this really irritates me-- considering the only tax (i beleive) that is required to be charged is the federal excise tax. |
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christcorp
Premium
join:2001-05-21
Cheyenne, WY | ummmm, didn't the government rescind the Federal Excise Tax last summer? Is there still voip providers charging it? Later... Mike... |
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jinjimbob
Troy Mcclure
join:2001-11-13 | reply to priller
Re: Tax and Fees Now 15% of the bill
Lines 2 and 4 aren't taxes. They are bogus 'fees' made up by your phone company. |
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christcorp
Premium
join:2001-05-21
Cheyenne, WY
·Bresnan Online
·VOIPo
| I think you mean line 3; not line 4. Line 4 is in place by the government. Line 3 is the cost for the phone company to contract and pay for their ability to provider 911 services. This is a cost of doing business. But, it would be just as easy for the company to add $2 to their price for line 2 and 3 and not mention it. Then you would pay the same thing but we wouldn't be able to have this conversation. Later... Mike... |
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ryan22030
join:2007-01-21
Fairfax, VA | wow-- ur right, im wrong FET no longer exists |
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Jonbo298
join:2004-01-12
Council Bluffs, IA | reply to christcorp
FET was stopped collecting on Long Distance only. Local service they can still collect it on |
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Parneli
join:2004-12-28
Naperville, IL
| reply to priller
I've got you beat...32.8%...do I win a prize?
Residential Premium Unlimited Plan $24.99
Regulatory Recovery Fee $0.99
Emergency 911 Cost Recovery $0.99
State Communications Service Tax $1.96
Federal Universal Service Fee $1.46
Local Communications Service Tax $1.40
Local 911 Fee $1.25
State Telecom Infrastructure Maintenance Fee $0.14
Total Amount $33.18
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arctangent
join:2003-11-13
Brooklyn, NY
| Hah, I've got that beat. 36.4% are taxes on my bill.
Residential Basic 500 for 1-(718)-XXX-XXXX (25/Jan-24/Feb) $14.99
Regulatory Recovery Fee $0.99
Emergency 911 Cost Recovery $0.99
Sales Tax $1.44
Federal Universal Service Fee $0.92
State Excise Tax $0.45
Local Franchise Tax $0.40
County MCTD Surcharge Sec. 186 $0.11
State Franchise Surcharge Sec. 184-Access $0.07
Local Transit Tax $0.07
County MCTD Surcharge Sec. 184 $0.02
Total Amount $20.45 |
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Altered
join:2007-01-24
Paris, TX
 ·AT&T DSL Service
·Suddenlink
| reply to priller
Man I dont have a complaint yet. I was a AT&T pawn for years and they put the screws to me so long i was sick of it. I was paying a little over $60.00 a month. I would call AT&T and beg them to please take any extras off all I wanted was a local phone#. No long distance no nothing extra. I called them several times and I would get some foreign woman that I barely could understand to tell me ok ok after all the recording bs.
Premium Unlimited Plan $24.99
Regulatory Recovery Fee $0.99
Emergency 911 Cost Recovery $0.99
State Sales Tax $2.09
Federal Universal Service Fee $1.46
County 911 Fee $.50
Total Amount $31.02
My bill is soooo SWEEEEET !!!!
--
No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb b***ard die for his country. General G. S. Patton |
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palerider
join:2005-05-13
Rancho Cucamonga, CA
| reply to priller
I disagree with the statement "Not much value in Vonage anymore." And fees/taxes at 15% of your phone bill is dirt cheap compared to MaBell's fees. I was with Verizon before I switched to Vonage and Verizon's taxes and "bogus regulatory fees" were 31% of my bill. My phone service with Verizon was $29.72/month before I ever made a call and before long distance charges. Further, if I added all the free Vonage services to my Verizon account, my bill would have been $59.00/month PLUS additional taxes and BEFORE any long distance charges. So, I'm a happy camper. My Vonage bill:
Residential Premium Unlimited Plan: $24.99
Regulatory Recovery Fee: .99
Emergency 911 Cost Recovery: .99
Federal Universal Service Fee: 1.46
Total Monthly Bill: $28.43
It also appears that taxes/charges vary from state to state. I live in southern California and as you can clearly see, I don't have many of the taxes/charges many of you are paying.
Finally, my brother switched his business service from Verizon to Vonage and he saved $107.00/month on basic phone service (same number of voice and fax lines) plus another $80 - $100 in long distance charges. Does he mind the taxes? Hell no!
No value in Vonage? I'd say there's still tremendous value in Vonage even with the added taxes/charges. Whether the charges are listed as line items or rolled into the price of the service doesn't really matter. And I agree that some of the charges are bogus and made to look like "Federally-mandated" costs. What really matters to me is the bottom line. Vonage is way less expensive than MaBell landline service and, in my opinion, significantly better voice quality than I ever had with Verizon. |
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