Yet ANOTHER d*** fee tacked onto my bill!!!

Posts: 274 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Feb 09, 2006 Posts: 274

I know I'm not alone in b*tching about this, but effective w/ my 2-5-07 invoice for which I just got billed, there is yet ANOTHER tax/fee tacked onto it. Here are my fees for February 2007 invoice:

Regulatory Recovery Fee $1.98
Emergency 911 Cost Recovery $1.98
State Communications Service Tax $3.15
Local Communications Service Tax $2.70
County 911 Fee $2.50
Federal Universal Service Fee $2.37
State Telecom Infrastructure Maintenance Fee $0.22

Mad

The "county 911 fee" was the one just added with this month's invoice. When I add up all my taxes/fees, they now equate to an unbelievable 27% of my total bill!!!

One main reason for my getting Vonage was to save money. I had spent about $80 to $90 per month with SBC (now AT&T here) and had cut my costs in half when switching to Vonage. Now my savings, with all these taxes/fees, has been cut in half from 50% to 25%, if that. Sure, that's still a savings, but how much longer till it dwindles even more. If it does, I'll not have much incentive to retain VOIP service period. My bill has gone up $18/month since summer 2006.

I can live with, albeit it begrudgingly, taxes and fees, but where do they stop? What's next?!? A "global warming" tax? An electromagnetic fee? Rolling Eyes

ARGH!!!

Posts: 1320 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Nov 08, 2006 Posts: 1320

Don't blame Vonage, I am sure you would be paying these fees if you still had your landline. It might be cheaper to move to another state.

Posts: 36 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Sep 02, 2006 Posts: 36

Taxes are imposed by your local gov.

To answer all your questions about the taxes, might as well contact your local goverment;

Posts: 274 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Feb 09, 2006 Posts: 274

Taxes are imposed by my local government??? Really??? Gee, that's a first.

I KNOW who imposes the taxes; I'm just venting. My county, state, and federal government do not have forums on which I can vent, though.

Posts: 327 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: Dec 13, 2005 Posts: 327

Taxes and fees will go up as VoIP becomes mainstream. When it first came out, VoIP was a technology that avoided taxes - and looked good. To those who view taxes as "revenue" rather than expense - as VoIP became more significant and people moved from traditional lines to VoIP, they needed to figure out how to "keep" their revenue coming in (or cut costs, which does not seem to be something that governments anywhere shoose to do).

The result is that all the fees that were originally tacked on to regular phone lines (my Verizon basic line - needed to support DSL - goes from about $12.50 for the quoted service to $19 with all the taxes and fees thrown in). I expect that VoIP services will get to the same place as they become mainstream.

Technology can only avoid tax for a while - until those doing the tacing change the rules.

Posts: 1178 · Member of the Week Joined: Feb 28, 2005 Posts: 1178

I feel for you ump25. I know how that feels. I must say that your tax structure is more complicated and more expensive than mine but I can understand your feelings. Unfortunately, howiewifi is correct. This is the way the government worked with internet sales as well which were tax exempt for a number of years in order to give business incentives to sell online but now that it has grown substantially, the government has begun to impose sales taxes if the item is sold in a state in which the business has a physical presence.

I think the same is the case with these phone taxes. As the local governments recognized how much revenue they were losing, they had to act. It was just too much to lose their revenue which is essential to running all the various aspects of local business. My only question would be, if these taxes were, for whatever reason, higher than your local telco taxes, then I would be fuming but if they are the same as your local telco, then all we can say is that voip is indeed becoming mainstream.

Posts: 37 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Nov 16, 2005 Posts: 37

Keep in mind that these two charges are NOT mandated by any government entity:

Regulatory Recovery Fee $1.98
Emergency 911 Cost Recovery $1.98

Vonage charges these simply because they can, not because they have to. That's an extra $4 to your bill every month just because Vonage feels like it. Why not just include this in the monthly rate instead of tacking it on the end? That's what I hate about telephone companies. A $24.99 plan works out to more like $37 after all the taxes and other crap is done.

Posts: 1178 · Member of the Week Joined: Feb 28, 2005 Posts: 1178

Residential Basic 500 Plan for 1-(xxx)-xxx-xxxx (26/Jan-25/Feb) $14.99
Regulatory Recovery Fee $0.99
Emergency 911 Cost Recovery $0.99
Sales Tax $1.11
Federal Universal Service Fee $0.92
Total Amount $19.00

These are my fees and taxes. Apparently, their fees are different depending on whether you are on the limited or unlimited plan.

compare you 1.98 to my .99 recovery fee for example

Posts: 1320 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Nov 08, 2006 Posts: 1320

If this isn't regulated by your state, then I would call Vonage and ask why they are charging these fees.

I know if they did that to me, then I would be switching providers and since they changed the price before my 12 months were up I wouldn't be paying the disconnection early fee.

Posts: 426 · Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 9:05 pm Post subject:

Vonage, the telephone company, that is not a telephone company, but really is one.

(Government intervention)