I
106TH CONGRESS
1ST SESSION
H. R. 3489
To amend the Communications Act of 1934 to regulate interstate commerce
in the use of mobile telephones and to strengthen and clarify prohibitions
on electronic eavesdropping, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
NOVEMBER 18, 1999
Mr. PICKERING (for himself, Mr. MARKEY, Mrs. WILSON, Mr. LARGENT, and
Mr. TAUZIN) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the
Committee on Commerce, and in addition to the Committee on the Judi-
ciary, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each
case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of
the committee concerned
A BILL
To amend the Communications Act of 1934 to regulate inter-
state commerce in the use of mobile telephones and
to strengthen and clarify prohibitions on electronic eaves-
dropping, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Wireless Telecommuni-
cations Sourcing and Privacy Act’’.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
The Congress finds the following:
(1) The provision of mobile telecommunications
services is a matter of interstate commerce within
the jurisdiction of the United States Congress under
Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitu-
tion. Certain aspects of mobile telecommunications
technologies and services do not respect, and operate
independently of, State and local jurisdictional
boundaries.
(2) The mobility afforded to millions of Amer-
ican consumers by mobile telecommunications serv-
ices helps to fuel the American economy, facilitate
the development of the information superhighway
and provide important safety benefits.
(3) Users of mobile telecommunications services
can originate a call in one State or local jurisdiction
and travel through other States or local jurisdictions
during the course of the call. These circumstances
make it more difficult to track the separate seg-
ments of a particular call with all of the States and
local jurisdictions involved with the call. In addition,
expanded home calling areas, bundled service offer-
ings and other marketing advances make it increas-
ingly difficult to assign each transaction to a specific
taxing jurisdiction.
(4) State and local taxes imposed on mobile
telecommunications services that are not consistently
based can subject consumers, businesses and others
engaged in interstate commerce to multiple, con-
fusing and burdensome State and local taxes and re-
sult in higher costs to consumers and the industry.
(5) State and local taxes that are not consist-
ently based can result in some telecommunications
revenues inadvertently escaping State and local tax-
ation altogether, thereby violating standards of tax
fairness, creating inequities among competitors in
the telecommunications market and depriving State
and local governments of needed tax revenues.
(6) Because State and local tax laws and regu-
lations of many jurisdictions were established before
the proliferation of mobile telecommunications serv-
ices, the application of these laws to the provision of
mobile telecommunications services may produce
conflicting or unintended tax results.
(7) State and local governments provide essen-
tial public services, including services that Congress
encourages State and local governments to under-
take in partnership with the Federal government for
the achievement of important national policy goals.
(8) State and local governments provide serv-
ices that support the flow of interstate commerce,
including services that support the use and develop-
ment of mobile telecommunications services.
(9) State governments as sovereign entities in
our Federal system may require that interstate com-
merce conducted within their borders pay its fair
share of tax to support the governmental services
provided by those governments.
(10) Local governments as autonomous subdivi-
sions of a State government may require that inter-
state commerce conducted within their borders pay
its fair share of tax to support the governmental
services provided by those governments.
(11) To balance the needs of interstate com-
merce and the mobile telecommunications industry
with the legitimate role of State and local govern-
ments in our system of federalism, Congress needs
to establish a uniform and coherent national policy
regarding the taxation of mobile telecommunications
services through the exercise of its constitutional au-
thority to regulate interstate commerce.
(12) Congress also recognizes that the solution
established by this legislation is a necessarily prac-
tical one and must provide for a system of State and
local taxation of mobile telecommunications services
that in the absence of this solution would not other-
wise occur. To this extent, Congress exercises its
power to provide a reasonable solution to otherwise
insoluble problems of multi-jurisdictional commerce.
SEC. 3. AMENDMENT OF COMMUNICATIONS ACT OF 1934 TO
PROVIDE RULES FOR DETERMINING STATE
AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT TREATMENT OF
CHARGES 
RELATED 
TO 
MOBILE 
TELE-
COMMUNICATIONS SERVICES.
(a) IN GENERAL.—The Communications Act of 1934
(47 U.S.C. 151 et seq.) is amended by adding at the end
thereof the following:
‘‘TITLE VIII—STATE AND LOCAL
TREATMENT 
OF 
CHARGES
FOR MOBILE TELECOMMUNI-
CATIONS SERVICES
‘‘SEC. 801. APPLICATION OF TITLE.
‘‘(a) IN GENERAL.—This title applies to any tax,
charge, or fee levied by a taxing jurisdiction as a fixed
charge for each customer or measured by gross amounts
charged to customers for mobile telecommunications serv-
ices, regardless of whether such tax, charge, or fee is im-
posed on the vendor or customer of the service and regard-
less of the terminology used to describe the tax, charge,
or fee.
‘‘(b) GENERAL EXCEPTIONS.—This title does not
apply to—
‘‘(1) any tax, charge, or fee levied upon or
measured by the net income, capital stock, net
worth, or property value of the provider of mobile
telecommunications service;
‘‘(2) any tax, charge, or fee that is applied to
an equitably apportioned gross amount that is not
determined on a transactional basis;
‘‘(3) any tax, charge, or fee that represents
compensation for a mobile telecommunications serv-
ice provider’s use of public rights of way or other
public property, provided that such tax, charge, or
fee is not levied by the taxing jurisdiction as a fixed
charge for each customer or measured by gross
amounts charged to customers for mobile tele-
communication services; or
‘‘(4) any fee related to obligations under section
254 of this Act.’’.
‘‘(c) SPECIFIC EXCEPTIONS.—This title—
‘‘(1) does not apply to the determination of the
taxing situs of prepaid telephone calling services;
‘‘(2) does not affect the taxability of either the
initial sale of mobile telecommunications services or
subsequent resale, whether as sales of the service
alone or as a part of a bundled product, where the
Internet Tax Freedom Act would preclude a taxing
jurisdiction from subjecting the charges of the sale
of these mobile telecommunications services to a tax,
charge, or fee but this section provides no evidence
of the intent of Congress with respect to the applica-
bility of the Internet Tax Freedom Act to such
charges; and
‘‘(3) does not apply to the determination of the
taxing situs of air-ground radiotelephone service as
defined in section 22.99 of the Commission’s regula-
tions (47 C.F.R. 22.99).
‘‘SEC. 802. SOURCING RULES.
‘‘(a) IN GENERAL.—Notwithstanding the law of any
State or political subdivision thereof to the contrary, mo-
bile telecommunications services provided in a taxing juris-
diction to a customer, the charges for which are billed by
or for the customer’s home service provider, shall be
deemed to be provided by the customer’s home service pro-
vider.
‘‘(b) JURISDICTION.—All charges for mobile tele-
communications services that are deemed to be provided
by the customer’s home service provider under this title
are authorized to be subjected to tax, charge, or fee by
the taxing jurisdictions whose territorial limits encompass
the customer’s place of primary use, regardless of where
the mobile telecommunication services originate, terminate
or pass through, and no other taxing jurisdiction may im-
pose taxes, charges, or fees on charges for such mobile
telecommunications services.
‘‘SEC. 803. LIMITATIONS.
‘‘This title does not—
‘‘(1) provide authority to a taxing jurisdiction
to impose a tax, charge, or fee that the laws of the
jurisdiction do not authorize the jurisdiction to im-
pose; or
‘‘(2) modify, impair, supersede, or authorize the
modification, impairment, or supersession of, the law
of any taxing jurisdiction pertaining to taxation ex-
cept as expressly provided in this title.
‘‘SEC. 804. ELECTRONIC DATABASES FOR NATIONWIDE
STANDARD 
NUMERIC 
JURISDICTIONAL
CODES.
‘‘(a) ELECTRONIC DATABASE.—A State may provide
an electronic database to a home service provider or, if
a State does not provide such an electronic database to
home service providers, then the designated database pro-
vider may provide an electronic database to a home service
provider. The electronic database, whether provided by the
State or the designated database provider, shall be pro-
vided in a format approved by the American National
Standards Institute’s Accredited Standards Committee
X12, that, allowing for de minimis deviations, designates
for each street address in the State, including to the ex-
tent practicable, any multiple postal street addresses ap-
plicable to one street location, the appropriate taxing juris-
dictions, and the appropriate code for each taxing jurisdic-
tion, for each level of taxing jurisdiction, identified by one
nationwide standard numeric code. The electronic data-
base shall also provide the appropriate code for each street
address with respect to political subdivisions which are not
taxing jurisdictions when reasonably needed to determine
the proper taxing jurisdiction. The nationwide standard
numeric codes shall contain the same number of numeric
digits with each digit or combination of digits referring
to the same level of taxing jurisdiction throughout the
United States using a format similar to FIPS 55–3 or
other appropriate standard approved by the Federation of
Tax Administrators and the Multistate Tax Commission,
or their successors. Each address shall be provided in
standard postal format.