FILE ART - Texting FILE ART - Texting 
 
 - Taxing your texting – the California Public Utilities Commission is proposing a plan to charge a fee for text messaging on cell phones 
 
 The surcharge rate is less than seven percent currently for telephone services. So for every $10 of text revenues – it would cost about 70 cents. The Mercury News reports a charge like that could bring in $44 million a year from wireless users. 
 
 The CPUC wants to clarify rules on whether texting revenues are surchargeable or not – the pending draft proposal commissioners are going to vote on in January concludes it is OK to tax. 
 
 In the 1990s, the federal government and states created “public purpose programs,” 
 
 charging people a fee for telecommunication services - like talking on a landline phone. 
 
 That money helps fund programs to make phone services more accessible for those who are low income. This new proposal would extend that existing tax to cover text messages. 
 
 The CPUC says if more surcharge revenue comes from texting – less will come from voice services. And if texting surcharges aren’t collected to fund programs - more would come from voice services. 
 
 The CTIA which represents the US wireless communications industry argues texting is not a telecommunications service that can be regulated by the commission but rather an information service like email. 
 
 The California Chamber of Commerce, the Bay Area Council, TechNet and the California Taxpayers Association, all called the proposal unnecessary in a letter to the CPUC: “This [proposal] will result in the state unnecessarily relying on a legally dubious funding source when there are legally sound mechanisms available to ensure the continued viability of these programs.” 
 
 The critics added that the proposal could actually hurt low income wireless users by potentially making them pay the new tax. 
 
 On Wednesday, however, some people in Walnut Creek seemed to think the idea might be a good one. 
 
 “You get taxed on every other utility,” said Samuel Schussler. “As long as it was equitable and spread to business and personal perhaps leaning towards business, I’d be OK with it.” 
 
 "If it’s really used for what they say the purpose is, that’s a good idea, " said Jan Coconis. "People are using it a lot, abusing it. Maybe if they tax it it could be advantageous in that way." 
 
 The FCC is expected to meet Wednesday on the issue. 
 
 ||||| Texting your sweetheart that you’re on your way home? California may soon charge you for that. 
 
 This is no LOL matter, critics say. 
 
 State regulators have been ginning up a scheme to charge a fee for text messaging on mobile phones to help support programs that make phone service accessible to the poor. The wireless industry and business groups have been working to defeat the proposal, now scheduled for a vote next month by the California Public Utilities Commission. 
 
 “It’s a dumb idea,” said Jim Wunderman, president of the Bay Area Council business-sponsored advocacy group. “This is how conversations take place in this day and age, and it’s almost like saying there should be a tax on the conversations we have.” 
 
 Federal Communications Commission decision deals blow to California text-tax plan – read the article 
 
 It’s unclear how much individual consumers would be asked to pay their wireless carrier for texting services under the proposal. But it likely would be billed as a flat surcharge per customer — one of those irksome fees at the bottom of your wireless bill — not a fee per text. 
 
 Business groups, including the Bay Area Council, California Chamber of Commerce and Silicon Valley Leadership Group and others opposing the idea, calculated the new charges for wireless consumers could total about $44.5 million a year. 
 
 Related Articles FCC decision deals blow to California text-tax plan 
 
 Opinion: California PUC may approve tax on text messages – srsly 
 
 Will new tech taxes be contagious? But they add that under the regulators’ proposal the charge could be applied retroactively for five years — which they call “an alarming precedent” — and could amount to a bill of more than $220 million for California consumers. 
 
 A dense California Public Utilities Commission report laying out the case for the texting surcharge says the Public Purpose Program budget has climbed from $670 million in 2011 to $998 million last year. But the telecommunications industry revenues that fund the program have fallen from $16.5 billion in 2011 to $11.3 billion in 2017, it said. 
 
 “This is unsustainable over time,” the report says, arguing that adding surcharges on text messaging will increase the revenue base that funds programs that help low-income Californians afford phone service. 
 
 “From a consumer’s point of view, surcharges may be a wash, because if more surcharge revenues come from texting services, less would be needed from voice services,” said CPUC spokeswoman Constance Gordon in a statement. “Generally, those consumers who create greater texting revenues may pay a bit more, whereas consumers using more voice services may pay less.” 
 
 Wunderman said he’s unaware of any other local, state or federal program that taxes texting. And the wireless industry has argued the state commission even lacks legal grounds for doing so. 
 
 The CTIA, which represents the U.S. wireless communications industry including AT&T Mobility, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon, said in legal filings to the commission that texting is an information service like email, not a telecommunications service subject to the commission’s authority. 
 
 The Federal Communications Commission is expected to affirm that Wednesday at a meeting, the CTIA said, which would confirm that the state utilities commission “has no authority to impose surcharges on text messaging.” 
 
 Beyond that, the wireless industry argues a surcharge on texting would put carriers at a disadvantage with competing messaging services that wouldn’t be hit with the new fees, such as Facebook’s Messenger and WhatsApp, Apple’s iMessage and Microsoft’s Skype. Those kinds of services account for “almost triple the volume” of wireless carriers’ share of the more than 3 trillion text messages sent in 2018 alone, according to the CTIA. 
 
 “Subjecting wireless carriers’ text messaging traffic to surcharges that cannot be applied to the lion’s share of messaging traffic and messaging providers is illogical, anticompetitive, and harmful to consumers,” the CTIA said in its filings. 
 
 In a letter to commissioners urging them to drop the plan, business groups and other critics added that wireless customers already pay a surcharge for the Public Purpose Programs, which they said “are healthy and well-funded, with nearly $1 billion in the budget.” 
 
 But the commission in a proposed decision by an administrative law judge concluded “in principle that the commission should assess Public Purpose Program surcharges and user fees on all text messaging services revenue” and that it has the necessary authority to do so. 
 
 Asked about the idea after he checked his text messages in downtown San Jose, Juan Gutierrez, 25, who works for a delivery service, said it sounded “absurd.” 
 
 “California just doesn’t stop trying to get money out of you,” Gutierrez lamented. “What’s next?” ||||| CLOSE The state hopes to raise over $40 million annually by adding a surcharge for texts. Time 
 
 The new proposal is partially due to landline era legislation coupled with the fact the people are shifting their usage patterns away from voice calls in favor of texting. 
 
 California's Public Utilities Commission is considering a plan that would charge mobile phone users a fee for sending text messages, according to recent public law filings. 
 
 The proposal is partially due to landline-era legislation coupled with the fact the people are shifting patterns away from voice calls in favor of texting. 
 
 California is determining whether surcharges and user fees on text messaging comply with Public Purpose Programs, which use tax revenue to make telecommunications services accessible to low-income residents. The programs, which date to the 1930s, were given a face-lift in the late 1990s, allowing individual states to impose requirements to preserve what's referred to as a "universal service." 
 
 During the rise of the internet, the telecommunications industry was able to elude these taxes by offering "information services" like email and web browsing. 
 
 However, as mobile phone users shifted their behavior away from making phone calls, voice call revenue for these state programs has dropped by about a third, from $16.5 billion in 2011 to $11.3 billion in 2017, according to law filings. 
 
 Meanwhile, the budget for subsidizing poorer users has risen by almost half, from $670 million in 2011 to $998 million in 2017, the filings said. 
 
 The wireless industry argues added fees would put carriers at a higher disadvantage since messaging services like Apple's iMessage, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger would not be charged under the proposed legislation. 
 
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 The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, a trade organization that represents the U.S. wireless communications industry, said in legal filings to the California commission that it has "repeatedly" demonstrated that text messaging is, in fact, an information service. 
 
 "Subjecting wireless carriers’ text messaging traffic to surcharges that cannot be applied to the lion’s share of messaging traffic and messaging providers is illogical, anticompetitive and harmful to consumers," CTIA said in the filings. 
 
 While state regulators aren't scheduled to vote on the proposal until next month, wireless customers have taken to social media to express their concerns about the bill. 
 
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 Twitter user @Myblueheavenn writes, "Of course California wants to tax your text messages. They would tax your toilet use if they could." 
 
 Of course California wants to tax your text messages. They would tax your toilet use if they could. https://t.co/PIUuiwe2X6 — chris larson (@myblueheavenn) December 12, 2018 
 
 Twitter user @Kmoliverio1 writes: OMG! Now a California proposal wants to tax text-messaging, retroactive for 5 years. 
 
 OMG! Now a California proposal wants to tax text-messaging, retroactive for 5 years. — Kirk M. Oliver (@Kmoliverio1) December 12, 2018 
 
 Follow Dalvin Brown on Twitter: @Dalvin_Brown 
 
 Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/12/12/california-text-tax-state-considers-plan-charge-messages/2288600002/
– What are people saying about California’s plan to tax text messaging? “It’s a dumb idea,” Jim Wunderman, president of a business advocacy group, tells the Mercury News. A 25-year-old delivery man in Silicon Valley tells the paper the proposal is “absurd.” And a Twitter user laments that the Golden State would “tax your toilet use if they could.” But not all of the feedback about the California Public Utilities Commission’s scheme to scare up more revenue for the Public Purpose Program—which subsidizes phone service for the poor, per USA Today—is negative. “As long as it’s equitable … I’d be OK with it,” a Walnut Creek resident tells KTVU. Another person tells the station, “If it’s really used for what they say the purpose is, that’s a good idea.” According to a CPUC report, the Public Purpose Program budget is growing while revenue for the program from telecommunications companies is shrinking as the trend of people favoring text messages over voice calls continues, a situation that is “unsustainable over time.” Opponents, however, say that wireless users already pay a surcharge for the program, per the Mercury News, and argue that texting is more like email than phone calls, and so the commission doesn’t have the authority to tax it. The proposal would reportedly raise about $44 million a year (as a flat surcharge, rather than a per-text fee), and it would be retroactive for five years. A CPUC vote on the proposal is set for next month. (California recently passed rules requiring solar power for new residences.)