Telephone Tax Refund

If you’re like most people, you’ve given up on trying to decipher everything on your phone bill.  Up until recently, one of these was a long distance tax originally imposed in 1898 as a luxury tax.  Fortunately for us, some people who do actually pay attention to all those line items on their phone bill went to court over this and the courts agreed.  This tax no longer applies to long distance as it is billed today. 

This is where the refund comes in.  If you had a phone with long distance between 2003 and now you can apply for a refund (with interest!) of that tax.  Now you’re probably wondering what hoops you have to jump through to get that.  You do have the option of claiming the exact tax, but who knows what that is?  You’d need to have all your phone records for that time period to determine the amount owed you.  The good news is you also have the option of claiming the standard refund of $30 to $60 on your return based on the amount of exemptions (You, wife, kids) that are on your return.

If you are in a position where you are not filing a return, you can still get the refund by filing form 1040EZ-T.

You can find more information on the US Treasury website or the IRS website.  Also you can view the full IRS notice if you are interested (or if you need help falling asleep).