New Sales tax discussion

Posts: 56 · Full Forum Member Joined: Mar 15, 2006 Posts: 56

so I was on vonage.com tonight, and I see they got a new logo. You shoud all check it out. Also- in the service announcments they say they are going to charge more taxes... BOOOO!!!! This is why I got away from sprint.

Posts: 1715 · Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 12:05 am Post subject:

The new logo.....looks like a grade school kid did it. Vonage's efforts are better-spent improving customer service, infrastructure, and adding a few features (ACR anyone?) than logos.

Does anyone know where the new taxes will be charged?

Posts: 2257 · Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 7:01 am Post subject:

VonageTPA wrote:

Does anyone know where the new taxes will be charged?

In, vaguely enough, "several states". You'd think if they took the time to set up the complexity of sales tax for those states, they could list 'em on the announcement, maybe along with the rates. (sigh).

Posts: 1424 · Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 8:36 am Post subject:

NateHoy wrote:

VonageTPA wrote:

Does anyone know where the new taxes will be charged?

In, vaguely enough, "several states". You'd think if they took the time to set up the complexity of sales tax for those states, they could list 'em on the announcement, maybe along with the rates. (sigh).

My take on this is that Vonage doesn't know anything about the tax rates. Vonage likes to hire third party providers to handle details like this. They probably are paying someone to keep track of all the tax law changes and provide an interface to Vonage's billing module that allows Vonage to feed in a locality, total bill and get back a tax charge.

Many large multi-state businesses outsource this function to companies like Taxware. I would look for some sales tax company to produce a press release that mentions that they handle VoIP tax and possibly specifically that the have a contract with Vonage.

One important caveat. Many of these taxes won't apply if you have a billing address different from where the phone is used, use a WiFi phone or if you travel a majority of the time with your adapter. If you fall into one of these categories you can attempt to have the taxes removed from your bill. If Vonage won't do it then you would need to apply for a refund from your locality, this may be too much trouble for the amount of money involved. All of this is, of course, subject to your state and local laws.

Posts: 1424 · Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 8:54 am Post subject:

So, let's start gathering tax information:

PA: State and Local Sales Tax
VA: State Telecommunication Tax (1/1/2007 5% + $0.75 E911)
WI: State and Local Sales Tax

[EDIT: Fixed VA date and added amount]

Posts: 1424 · Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 10:29 am Post subject:

I am guessing that you mean that they wanted to use a proprietary font so that their logo couldn't be reproduced without a copyright violation.

This is typical but their logo was commonly shown with a hollow star inside the V. This was included in their trademark application. I would think they could simply have mandated use of this existing logo and achieved the same level of protection. Besides the stylized V the new logo continues the use of ordinary text.

I think the new logo will be revealed to be part of a marketing plan designed to make the company more personable. The V in the logo will be shown to be the upstretched arms of a person with the blue dot being the head. I am concerned about the similarity of this logo with Cingular's X logo.

Excuse me, have you seen my legs?

Posts: 63 · Full Forum Member Joined: Jan 14, 2005 Posts: 63

abela2006 wrote:

Also- in the service announcments they say they are going to charge more taxes... BOOOO!!!! This is why I got away from sprint.

... And a HUGE reason I parted company with Qwest! My taxes on my $24.99 plan with Qwest brought the total amount of my bill up to $37.49 every month (Nearly $13.00 in taxes!)

If my Vonage bill takes the same path... Goodbye to "land Line" phone service. The wife and I will get by with our cell phones!

Posts: 41 · Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 12:18 pm Post subject:

Anyone know if the other VOIP co's are also going to be charging a "sales tax" in unspecified States?

Posts: 2257 · Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 12:29 pm Post subject:

Durp wrote:

Anyone know if the other VOIP co's are also going to be charging a "sales tax" in unspecified States?

Vonage wouldn't be charging this if they were not told to by the "unspecified states". If the local tax authorities impose new taxes, all the VoIP companies will probably have to start charging them and forwarding the proceeds along to the tax authorities (or eat the taxes, which can be a considerable amount of money).

Either Vonage is being singled out because they are the largest (which means the other companies will have to follow suit shortly), or the other companies are just planning on eating the cost, which means their rates will have to go up to account for all that lost money soon.

*sigh* It was fun while it lasted, but the tax man cometh, apparently.

Posts: 1715

mbkerk wrote:

... And a HUGE reason I parted company with Qwest! My taxes on my $24.99 plan with Qwest brought the total amount of my bill up to $37.49 every month (Nearly $13.00 in taxes!)

If my Vonage bill takes the same path... Goodbye to "land Line" phone service. The wife and I will get by with our cell phones!

Not sure about your area, but here (Florida) it's ~20% tax on cell phones.